When I was eight or nine years old I read comic books, specifically Iron Man comic books.  I’m not sure what the appeal of Iron Man was but I picked him over the other superheroes. It may have been the color of his outfit.  I’d hate to think it was because my sexuality has been of the uninterrupted straight variety and choosing a superhero based on outfit color isn’t an acceptable criterion.  However, I’ve always liked that amber color.  This is, of course, beside the point.  The actual point I’m trying to make has very  little to do with Iron Man and everything to do with those little ads for stuff in the back of any comic book.  The one’s for x-ray glasses and  the like.  The ad that caught my eye was for a pellet gun.
Let me just say that the pellet gun in question looked very good to young boy’s eye.  It was shiny black and looked like it could take down about anything I might want to aim its deadly countenance toward.  It was semi-automatic.  Let me say that again so you can understand the nature of those words.  It was SEMI-AUTOMATIC!  A semi-automatic pellet gun that looked better than any gun I’d ever seen before was too much for my little mind to handle.  Never mind that the picture was no more than an inch wide and an inch tall.  With this gun in  my hand I would be invincible.  I could see myself slinging lead pellets all over the place.  I would be drawing from the hip and protecting me and my family’s territory against any and all enemies whether real or imaginary.  I carefully clipped out the little square from the comic book.  I salivated as I counted my secret allowance stash.  I walked like a man on a  mission to lobby my parents for an envelope and a stamp.  My father took one look at my glorious find and rolled his eyes.  He tried to tell me that re-usable pellets weren’t a good thing.  I replied “well if you dig them out of your kill you can re-use them thus saving money on pellets.”  He had other arguments for me  to hear but my ears had made up their minds not to allow any more of this sacrilege.  Finally they relented.  My envelope was addressed and sent away the next morning.
I’m not old, but let’s say my youth was spent in the pre-internet days.  In those days things took four to six weeks to be delivered.  I’m not sure why the delay, but it seemed like everything you bought from a magazine, catalog, or the TV took four to six weeks to get to you.  Maybe the letter had to go to China.  I don’t know.  I remember the address being somewhere in California.  Is there a California in China?  I’ve not heard of one but I can’t be sure.  I can tell you this, four to six weeks to a kid is an eternity.  Time seemed to stand still for  me after that envelope was mailed.  An hour felt like it took a week to pass.  The only solace I could take was in day dreaming about that semi-automatic beauty.  Finally a  millennia past.  I was a quarter mile down the road at my grand parents house when the phone rang.  It was my Dad telling me I had a package.  I tore down the road and ran as fast as I could.  I didn’t take a breath.  My feet were barely touching the dirt on the road.  I ran into my house breathless and excited.  I’ve never gotten over what I saw next.  My dad was sitting in the floor with a tiny little plastic gun aiming at a tiny little target that my brother was  holding in front of him.  The target was painted on the plastic bag the gun had been delivered in.  Dad was firing tiny round plastic pellets at the target.  Both my Dad and  my brother were smirking.  I was crushed.  How could this be?  There’s been some mistake I thought.  Dad gingerly handed me the gun and told me to be careful with a such a dangerous weapon.  It was small even for my hand.  I aimed it and pulled the trigger.  A plastic pellet puked out of the barrel.  You could have shot yourself in the eye from one inch away and it wouldn’t have hurt.  I squeezed the trigger again and something broke inside.  It never worked again not that I cared.  Devastating.
My son is eight.  He gets on the computer and watches cartoons and plays games.  He knows no other world than the one that is inhabited by computers.  He likes to get on eBay and dream about toys and games he might get for Christmas or his birthday.  Last week he stumbled onto a pellet gun.  He was so excited.  He drug me to the computer and showed me his find.  It was beautiful.  It was a pellet shot gun.  Let me say that once more for effect.   It was a pellet SHOT GUN.  It was black and silver and looked like it could take down a charging elephant.  He quickly got into his allowance stash and counted out the correct amount.  He wanted this beauty badly.  I tried to tell him that re-usable pellets is not a good thing.  He would have nothing to do with my arguments.  I relented and took his money and pushed the buy it now button.  It arrived in three measly days.  Three days is not long enough to wait for something you want badly.  The world of shipping has sped up drastically since my youth.  He arrived from school to see the package sitting on the table.  He tore it open freeing it from it’s captivity.  It was way bigger than  my gun.  It was way prettier than mine.  He tore loose some plastic pellets and loaded her up.  He shot once and a plastic pellet came flying out with pretty good force slamming into the door making a nice spat sound.  He had a look of supreme satisfaction.  He pumped it again and shot with the same result.  He started to say something to me as he pumped it again when it broke smooth in half.  He got to shoot twice.  Twice.  A tear welled up in his eye and I held back the laughter that I could feel wanting to escape.  I told him about my experience and he seemed to feel a little better.  He tried to tape it together but there was no saving it.  It was dead.  I put my arm around him and told him the moral of the story as my dad had done me.  You get what you pay for.   My son and I are forever linked by our experience with cheap plastic toy Chinese guns.  Six dollars seems a small price to pay to learn there really is a sucker born every second.