Already bitten

After working for so long, Travis was finally relieved to have a few days off. While visiting his family at home, his mom and little sister went off to the water park on Sunday to catch up with some old friends. Meanwhile, he and dad had other things in mind.

After having the truck loaded up, the slammed the doors closed, and with a playful pat on the side of the metal beast, they were on their way to the gun range.

"When's the last time you've been there, Dad?"

"Well, I'd say it's been about four weeks, and a lot can happen since them. The air's more moist, for instance. We might have to factor in the humidity for today. So, we're gonna have to get our sights calibrated up just right."

"Really now? Only thing I'd figure that the heat would affect is the barrel's shape and even potentially the gunpowder. Everybody knows that when metal heats up it expands. So, wouldn't that give our bullets a better rotation?"

"Well, when you put it like that, we'll just have to try and find out."

Laughing heartily at that, they couldn't but help to feel the sincerity in the nostalgia emanating from this trip.

As they kept driving, they talked about all sorts of things. Topics ranged from music, to headphones, to search engines, till eventually they tackled the underlying theme of technology.

"I remember when I got that thing brand new. That was... how many Christmases ago?" He slowly counted on his fingers. "Yeah, it's been like eleven years by now. Holy shit!"

"Time really does fly, huh?"

"Yeah, back then I was still in junior high. God, to think that'd I'd live this long already makes me feel old."

"I know right? Just wait till you get to my age."

"Hey dad?"

"Yeah?"

"How come when you guys got them for us, you didn't like install any parental filters or anything?"

He paused, and himmed and hawwed for a moment. "Well, we thought about doing that, but we also figured that you were conscientious enough to know whether or not you'd really want to be doing those things that would require a parent block."

"I'm just surprised that you guys just didn't take them anywhere we after we unwrapped them."

"You know, we thought about that. Your mom and I really did. At the end of the day however, there'd be so many more things for us to protect you from constantly that would be trying to slip past the walls we'd set up. At the end of the day, we chalked it up to that if be better if we instilled those values in you to fight off those things and to say no to them."

"Well," Travis sounded a little saddened, "I wish you would've told us about the temptation that was out there more often, and how easily accessible it is."

"True, I can say that. I know I'm not the perfect parent, but I do wish I taught you guys about that more often."

"Yeah, especially since what you had back then was less stimulating than what we've got today."

"Really?"

"Yeah, dad, come on. You told me about how when you were hanging out with your friends at one of their houses, somebody passed around a box of their dad's magazines. You mentioned how you put it down, shook your head, and walked away."

"Yeah, I did."

"Well, for me I see it as, 'that seems pretty easy to do. The last thing I wanna do is be in a room with a bunch of other guys getting a hard-on, when we all like women, yet the only women here are in these flimsy books.'"

He laughed at that, "Yeah, really not the kind of environment I wanted to get intimate with myself in."

"Neither would I," Travis laughed. "Still, when it came down to my Christmas gift, I had access to the internet like I could never imagine. I'm not just talking about pictures or videos. Hell, you could watch the same thing on a loop if you wanted to. The sheer amount of diversity was an over stimulus in it of itself."

"Yeah, you're right about that. These days there's so much of it out there it's just one after the other after the other."

"You know what they sort of call that right?"

"No, what?"

"The Calvin Coolidge effect."

"That's what they call diversity?"

"No, but diversity reinvigorates arousal by providing a constant new supply of partners. Thus, hacking the organisms' biology. They found that one rooster could mate almost continuously throughout the day, but never with the same hen, it always had to be a new one. Hence, new pictures, new videos, new looping images, new actors and actresses; the body, let alone the mind, has not evolved to handle that much abundance."

"Ohhhh," dad was shocked. He felt a wave of guilt crash upon him just like the ones that would wreck ships upon the rocky edges of cliffsides that have lost their way at sea. It was a sinking feeling. One that sat with him and had made him sense that even the truck's suspension had creaked from the amount of guilt that's been newly acknowledged.

After sighing and taking in a deep breath, Travis continued, "Well, do you remember the statue of Mary holding baby Jesus?"

"Yeah, I remember seeing one at your school all the time."

"Yep, especially in that small little chapel. Thing is, she's always stepping on the serpent, keeping it at bay away from the babe."

"Yep, just as God said in Eden. 'I will put amnesty between you and the serpent. He will strike at your heel and you will strike at its head.'"

"Precisely, yet in several statues, we see that Mary's already been bitten protecting her babe, and few of the statues show her with her foot upon its head."

"Hmmmm..." He was astonished at Travis' attention to detail. Though, Travis has always been attentive even before he could speak. Though his ways of articulating it have grown well over the years. "You're right about that. Though that's probably just a design choice left up to the artists."

"Yeah, more than likely. I've never really seen two of those statues that were the same."

"Really now?"

"Okay, maybe once or twice in a store, but do you know what's important about that statue?"

"What?"

"There's a lesson in there about being taught to be ready. If the child is always taught to flee from the serpent, they will never eliminate their problem from the garden. Meanwhile, if you teach the child how to brandish a stick, and how to chop up a serpent, the child will be able to protect itself, the garden, and even prevent its parents from being struck on the heel."

"That's a good point."

"Yup, by always holding the child, that behavior carries on into its adulthood as more snakes enter the garden, your home, your paradise."

"But, by arming yourself and teaching your child, you also arm your kid to protect themselves and the home they live in."

"Yep."

"Well, this has been one heckuva interesting conversation about snakes and gardens, Travis. What makes you bring it up?"

"Well, remember the Christmas present?"

"Yeah."

"The dangers we talked about it having, it's not a snake but it definitely has the potential to be."

"Especially if you don't know how to chop it up before it bites you. Yet, I suggest you have another reasoning as well."

"Yeah, what's the logo on the back?"

"It's an apple."

"Precisely, just like one of the fruit of knowledge."

"Now that's an interesting comparison. I never thought of it like that. Though I guess some people might just chalk it up to corporate greed."

"Wanna know what's more terrifying about that apple, dad?"

"What?"

"It already has a bite taken out of it."