With a gun

What I first take to be a squirt gun turns out to be a relatively complicated spring-action pistol of the type that fires those 6mm plastic pellets which frequently irritate me due to their ubiquity as outdoor litter.

A combination of multiple, overlapping head colds with unseasonably rotten weather (as much as rotten weather is ever unseasonable in Minnesota) has kept us out of the park for a long time. I spot the pistol, lying in the grass by the parking lot, while my three year old companion digs in the giant municipal woodchip piles with his little shovels and buckets, pretending to be some kind of construction equipment. The legally required blaze orange tip on the barrel reveals it as a toy, but it’s only when I pick it up I realize by the weight and mechanical detail that it is not merely a cheap molded plastic toy. Other than the tip it is remarkably realistic.

My intention is to grab and bin it to avoid my son seeing it, but I lose track of that for a moment while I examine its unexpected nature - long enough for him to take note.

“What is that, Daddy? Is it a train?”

I think I had an inkling, at least theoretically, of how precious the innocence of childhood was before I became a parent, but I didn’t guess how frequently sad it could be. Guns don’t yet exist in his world. The thing I’m holding is fascinating, and mechanical, so his first guess is the most fascinating, mechanical thing he knows.

“It’s not a train,” I say, stuffing it into my jacket pocket. “It’s nothing we want to play with.”

Like so many things, I know I’m standing on a line I’ll never hold. I played with gun toys as a child and I expect my son to in time. But then again, as I so often do, I tell myself, yes, yes… But he’s only three. And I want to hold on to his gun-free world, however unreal, for a while longer.

At home I look on the internet and determine it is a replica of a 9mm pistol manufactured by a company named Taurus. The fully deadly version costs around $500-700, depending on how you purchase it: new, the replica is worth $30 or 40.

Something held me back from chucking it in the trash. Native frugality, perhaps, the thing obviously has some value. Or perhaps a lingering remnant of my own days of playing with guns: at home I play with it a little, examining the drop-out magazine, testing the action, dry firing the spring catch. I’ve got no use for the thing, though. Maybe I’ll try selling it on eBay.*

originally posted at spiritofsalt.com Mar 14, 2008 at 12:23 PM

*It took almost three years but I did finally unload it on eBay for a pittance. Toy guns of course now occupy a firm position in the child's happy fantasy world.