Silly Plays Grown-Up - a Somewhat Sad Story

One of the big differences between Serious and Silly is that Silly likes to pretend to be Serious, while Serious hardly ever likes to pretend to be Silly. As you know, both Serious and Silly are very good at pretending.

One morning, Silly and Serious were playing around the house. Actually, they weren't playing "Around the House." They were playing "House." You know, the pretend game when you pretend to be a baby or a mother or father.

Up until this time, Silly always got to play Baby. Silly could goo and gaa and drool and drip and crawl and kick, and be more of a baby and have more fun than even a real baby could have. And Baby Silly was more than silly enough to make this into a game Serious could take seriously. While Silly was playing Baby, Serious could try and try to get Baby to eat some pretend custard,. Or Serious could try to make Baby sit still, or be quiet for more than 10 seconds. Because Baby was always moving and making silly noises, trying to make Baby do anything was a serious enough challenge even for Serious

Today, at this very time, for some probably very serious reason, Serious decided that the playing House really wasn't very fun after all. Even though Silly seemed to be having more fun than a box full of self-rattling rattles, and even though trying to get Baby to do anything required Serious to exercise great skill and cunning and things - even though the game really was fun, Serious just wasn't having any.

So Serious harrumphed gallumphed and up and quit. "I will play Grown-Up no more," explained Serious in a deep and serious voice.

"OK," answered Silly, while trying to make a hat out of the bowl of pretend custard. "You play Baby, and I'll play Grown-Up."

A most interesting turn of events, thought Serious. A most significant reversal of roles, thought Serious again.

Well, as you can guess, Serious was just as good at playing Baby as Silly was. In fact, Serious was very, very good at playing Baby. Serious could cry and get angry and throw tantrums and be stubborn and cranky and make messes and knock things down - all so well and convincingly that everybody really thought that Serious was acting just like a big Baby.

Here's where this story starts to get somewhat sad.

Once Serious discovered how much fun it was to play Baby, that's pretty much all Serious wanted to play, ever. At first, Silly thought that maybe this whole thing wasn't such a good idea, after all. At first, it really wasn't that much fun for Silly to play Daddy or Mommy. It was hard for Silly to look busy all the time, and full of reasons for doing anything, and really, really hard to learn never to smile and only to laugh at TV and never with Baby, and to knit and furl one's eyebrows and keep them furled and knitted all the whole day.

After a while, Silly finally got really good at playing Grown-up - so good that people thought Silly really was almost as Grown-up as Daddy or Mommy - a very hard working, very serious Grown-up who would never do things like making a hat out of a bowl of pretend custard. After a similar while, Serious discovered how seriously one could play Baby and how many seriously baby-like things there were to do: whining and nagging, screaming and crying, throwing toys and tantrums.

Soon, Silly was even better than Serious at playing the very serious Grown-up. Because, unlike Serious, Silly could forget that it was all pretend. And Serious was even better at playing Baby than Silly was, because even though Serious knew it was supposed to be all for fun, Serious could be stubborn and cranky, loud and selfish, messy and irresponsible, spiteful and sometimes even mean - without looking like any of this was even the least bit fun, at all.

So Silly would act Grown-up all the time. All the time. From breakfast to dinner, from getting up to going back to bed. Even playing games, Silly would never laugh, and always look as if each turn and each move were things that had to be taken as seriously as bed time or teeth-brushing time or school time. And Serious would stay Baby-like all the way from breakfast to bath time. And even though there were for real things that only Serious could take seriously enough - things like taking care of pets and learning the alphabet, like helping people and making friends - Serious was too busy being too much of a baby to think about anything else at all ever.

The somewhat sad thing is that even though Serious really wasn't having fun, and Silly really wasn't having any fun either, they both kept playing the game. Hour after hour. Day after day. All the way until Silly and Serious grew really up - so up that Serious and Silly had a real house with a real spouse. And all that time, Serious never got to play Grown-up, ever. And Silly kept on playing - well, not really playing, not really even pretending, but truly almost believing - to be all grown up, and full of very important reasons with no time left: No time to play. No time at all.

You would think that a story that is as somewhat sad as this one is the kind of story that can only get sadder. Well it actually isn't. Because one day there was a baby in Serious and Silly's house. A real baby. A baby that really cried and really played and really ate and really needed to be dressed up and cuddled and cared for and looked after. A baby that wasn't pretending to be Baby. A baby that was even more real than even Serious could pretend to be. A baby that was as good at being silly as Silly was, as good at being serious as Serious ever hoped to be.

And this baby was so good at being Serious - at crying so really hard and needing so much to be held and fed and changed - that Serious started to wonder if there might be things that were even more important than getting to play Baby. And day by day the real baby showed Serious all kinds of reasons not to play Baby, or even to pretend to play Baby, or even to pretend to be playing to play Baby. Until all that Serious wanted to take really seriously was the real baby.

And this same baby was so good at being Silly - at, for example, giggling and gurgling and blowing spit bubbles all at the same time - that Silly started to remember how fun it used to be to play, how fun it once was to have fun. And day by day the real baby reminded Silly about the fun of making someone laugh, the fun of tickling and doing silly things and making silly faces and silly noises,. Until finally Silly thought how silly it was for someone who could be as silly as Silly to pretend to be too grown up for fun.

So, at the end, this really isn't a sad story at all. Silly got to be Silly again, in a way that was more fun than Silly could ever have had by playing Grown-up. And Serious got to be Serious again, in a way that was even more fun than playing Baby. Until everything was finally exactly as it should be.

One day, while Baby was all alone, playing one of Baby's favorite all alone games - a game Baby called "House," Baby wondered: wouldn't it be even more fun to play "Grown-Up?"