Once upon a time, there were 2 children who were twins. Their names were Susan and Jacob. Susan was born the day before Jacob.
For each birthday of theirs, they have a party with friends. They have cupcakes whenever they get their birthdays, and there are cupcakes of a number of colors that corresponds to their age.
For their first birthday, their color was green.
Second birthday: green and red
Third birthday: green, red, and blue
Now they were turning 4. Susan's birthday was first. She got the 4 colors she wanted; these are green, red, blue, and pink. She was very happy.
The next day was Jacob's birthday. He turned 4, and he wanted the same 4 colors; green, red, blue, and pink. But they were out of pink cupcakes; they gave him black instead of pink. Jacob complained as hard as he could, and he was sent to bed without opening any of his birthday presents. All the presents that were supposed to be his ended up belonging to Susan instead, and Susan opened them up the following morning.
Jacob was so unhappy because of all this. One of the presents that was supposed to be his was a clarinet. Susan loved her clarinet a lot that she played so many songs on it, and was happier than ever. Their mother went to the store to buy a piccolo for Jacob. He played his piccolo every day after Susan played her clarinet. Jacob's mother asked him, "Are you happy now that you got a belated birthday present??"
Jacob was happy that he got his piccolo. For a while, he loved his piccolo the same way Susan loved her clarinet, and forgot all about what made him upset on his birthday. But then one day, his grandmother came to visit. She was the one who gave Jacob the clarinet that was supposed to be his. Taking for granted that Jacob had the same fourth birthday party that he was supposed to have, she said, "Jacob, please show me your clarinet." Jacob corrected her and said that he has a piccolo and Susan has a clarinet, still forgetting about the fact that his birthday made him upset.
Now let's move on to their fifth birthday. Each of the twins had their birthday party with cupcakes; this time of 5 different colors; these are green, red, blue, pink, and turquoise. This time they were both happy. However, there was one difference that made Susan happier than Jacob.
Susan and Jacob each got a set of 6 putties; each one had its own firmness level and color. The softest was tan; then came yellow, red, green, blue, and black. Susan plays with them according to a rule. She always plays with one putty at a time, and she plays with them in the assigned order; the order is from softest to firmest. She always presses on them and notices the differences in their firmnesses. Jacob is different; he plays with more than one at a time and sometimes even sticks them together in that he thinks it can make a new putty with a color that can be made by mixing the 2 colors; for example, an orange putty that can be made by combining the yellow and red ones.
Jacob and Susan alike loved playing with putties. But Jacob simply refused to realize what they are for. He got a different birthday present after realizing this; this is clay that is intended to be mixed. The clay was of 6 different colors; white, yellow, red, green, blue, and black. He was able to make clay of other colors by mixing them.
Let's go on to their sixth birthday party now. They get 6 colors of cupcakes; green, red, blue, pink, turquoise, and yellow. This time, though, they got one special present for both of them; this is a pair of parakeets named Peggy and Patsy.
For a while they were both happy. But one day, 6 months after their birthday, their mother was going on a vacation with her friends from high school, and she asked her aunt (Susan and Jacob's great-aunt) to come over and babysit for 2 weeks. When this 2-week period was just halfway through, Susan and Jacob found out that one of the parakeets, specifically Peggy, was male. Jacob and Susan agreed that this would be easy to resolve by changing the male parakeet's name to Perry. If their mother had been home at that time everyone would agree. But their great-aunt said no. "His name is Peggy. To a parakeet, all names are unisex."
One week later, their mother came home and Susan talked with her mother about this event, and they agreed finally that the name of the parakeet should be changed to Perry.
After their mother's vacation, they were back to normal. Along came their seventh birthday. They got 7 colors of cupcakes; green, red, blue, pink, turquoise, yellow, and gray. They were just about to start opening presents when the parakeets started making loud sounds. Susan started to dislike the parakeets, and her mother understood her perfectly. But Jacob did not. Jacob wanted to keep the parakeets.
Jacob needed a conversation with his mother about what was going on with the parakeets. He needed to understand how much his mother and sister dislike their sounds. Meanwhile, Susan was opening her presents up and got lots of nice presents. One of them was a book about understanding mature thinking. It revealed that bright colors are a bad argument to use in determining whether something is good.
Susan told her mother about the book, saying that parakeets are not good pets to have. Chickens are the best bird species. Susan was successfully impressed by this.
The parakeets were now Jacob's alone; they were kept in his bedroom for the rest of their life.
Meanwhile, Susan and her mother bought chickens and they got a special coop. The coop was protected so that no fox or raccoon could come into the coop.
They bought a total of 5 chickens; a red one, an orange one, a yellow one, a white one, and a speckled one. Susan was happy to have differently-colored chickens. She feeds the chickens chicken food every day.
Eventually, a long came their eighth birthday. They got cupcakes of 8 different colors; green, red, blue, pink, turquoise, yellow, gray, and white. Susan and Jacob were both happy. One day, they were going to an amusement park. The amusement park had 2 parts. One part was fantasy/princess themed; the other was frontier/cowboy themed. Both children liked the fantasy/princess part of the park better, but because of the stereotypes everyone went by, the employees made Susan go on the fantasy/princess themed part and Jacob on the frontier/cowboy part. Jacob was once again unhappy because he didn't get the part of the park he wanted.
One week later, they went again and this time they were both happy to go on the fantasy/princess themed part. Susan and Jacob both loved it.
A year later came their ninth birthday. There was no ninth color, but there WAS a design that is used in place of the "ninth color". It is green-and-black striped. Both Susan and Jacob liked it.
Susan got a lunch at a skyscraper. She loved it, and especially loved her view of what was outside! Her seat was by the window and she could get her view easily. Jacob's birthday was at a single-story house with only a few rooms. The house was like a hut or teepee.
Their tenth birthday had a nice cupcake party as well; the cupcakes now included a red-and-black striped cupcake.
Susan got her own computer. She was happy to have it. She could do lots of things with it.
Jacob also got a computer, with one difference; it's a privilege; he can use it only if he first hugs his father.
The rule is that the hug must be 5 minutes long, and an additional minute is added every time Jacob complains about the hug feeling too tight or taking too long.
For their eleventh birthday, a blue-and-black striped cupcake was added. Susan got lots of occupational therapy toys. Jacob got a new rule applying to all boys who are in secondary school. The rule is: always listen to your father when he talks about the grades you get in school. If your father says a low grade of yours is a big deal, it is a big deal; DO NOT try to tell your father that your low grades are not as big of a deal to your mother, your teachers, or the system that operates your school as they are to your father himself.
Jacob felt very unhappy. He felt too much like someone whose goal was to learn to accept things that make him unhappy.
Then along came their twelfth birthday. Pink and black striped cupcakes came. After their birthday, each one got a new routine; feed the chickens. When their mother is home and she is the one responsible for giving her children food to feed the chickens, she makes sure it's the kind of food the chickens will eat, such as corn. But when she's out and their father gets this responsibility, he picks any food he wants. If he picks corn, he picks corn. If he picks chips, he picks chips. He says it's okay whether the chickens eat it or not, and if they don't, the squirrels that sometimes come into the coop can eat it.
Their thirteenth birthday came. For Susan, this was what she wanted; 13 colors and color patterns. These are green, red, blue, pink, turquoise, yellow, gray, white, green and black striped, red and black striped, blue and black striped, pink and black striped, and turquoise and black striped. But because Jacob was taught by his father that 13 is unlucky, he got one more kind; yellow and black striped. Jacob got very mad again.
Now let's go on to a new subject, a set of 60 tiles that Susan and Jacob both knew since the age of 3. It was a set of 60 tiles; each tile was one of 4 suits; circles, squares, triangles, and diamonds. Each color had 15 tiles; ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, bronze, silver, and gold, ranked in that order. But now they learned something different. In children's games, the ace ranks below the 2. But in games popular with adults, ace ranks above gold. Jacob wanted to resolve this by re-numbering all the tiles simply by taking 1 away from their original name, and re-naming the ace as a platinum (which rightfully implies a rank above gold.) But the names of the tiles were too well-established there was no way it could be done. A famous quote was "an ace is worth 4 points, a gold is worth 3 points, a silver is worth 2 points, a bronze is worth 1 point; all lower tiles are worth no points."
For the next 10 years, Susan and Jacob were both able to grow up the way they can. One day, both Susan and Jacob met someone to form a romantic relationship with. Susan met Sully and Jacob met Jane. After a while each couple got married. Each couple was happy to have a new chapter of their life.
After a year, Jacob and Jane got a daughter named Sarah. Sarah was nice and in many ways was a combination of Jane and Susan with respect to who she is just like barring her period of growing up. This helped Susan not miss having her own daughter. Susan was happier than ever she had a girl to know about.