Created: 28 Oct 2015
Believe it or not, our Psychology class was assigned to write another narrative. I was instantly struck with giddiness. I knew I had to fashion a wretched continuity out of this senseless storyline. The words flowed from my fingertips without resistance that night.
I got an A on this one too.
Bram awoke, aware not of his situation, but of his burning desire for revenge. Were his brain not that of an 18-month-old baby, he would have been awash with humiliation. A defender of humanity such as him, reduced to an inept child in what might have been his finest hour.
None of these thoughts occurred to Bram of course, there was nothing but primitive vagueness inside his baseball-sized brain, jumbling around. All he was aware of, as he awoke, was his burning desire -no, lust- for revenge.
However, a headless humanoid hologram hovered close at hand, hankering to help like a happy high-minded handyman.
First, the alien-mom scientists requested a computerized scan of Bram’s infant mind, hoping to find a possible Unconditioned Stimulus to put to work. The hologram quickly identified Bram’s want of revenge, isolated it, and sent the data back for approval. The scientists, curious and frightened, reserved the go-ahead, thinking it would be quite unwise to use a hostage’s hatred to Classically Condition them.
So instead, the hologram calculated a more appropriate method to elicit an Unconditioned Response, and settled on letting Bram eat a cupcake. On the opposite end of the laboratory, an advanced 3D printer printed a delicious chocolate cupcake, and a gun. A mechanical arm carried both across the room to the examination table.
Sure enough, as the cupcake was dropped into Bram’s mouth, he smiled. That was more than enough evidence to continue, so they quickly had the Neutral Stimulus, the gun, placed in his right hand. This time, as they fed Bram a cupcake and he smiled, they also had him fire the gun. The pastry-induced smile lingered on his face as he shot at the impenetrable ceiling.
The first Trial was a success, so the scientists all nodded pleasantly, positive that after several thousand successive Trials they would soon have a baby that really liked shooting things. So they totally left him alone and said they’d check back on him later. Days past, unchanged…
Finally, when satisfied, the scientists returned to check on Bram, hoping to find a kid who could defend himself with a gun and won’t need so much supervision, y’know? They did not give Bram a cupcake this time, just the gun. They waited with baited breath to see if firing it would cause Bram to smile, just as if he were eating a cupcake. Sure enough, he fired once, and a grin broke across his little face. The Acquisition process was a roaring success!
But the joke was on them! They didn’t correctly follow the steps of Classical Conditioning; they skipped making sure the Neutral Stimulus didn’t elicit an Unconditioned Response.
Their lazy scientific method would be their downfall! It turned out that Bram loved guns the whole time anyway. You can take the age- out of an agent, but you can’t take his weapons training!!!
Bram’s baby mind now had both the vengeful drive, and the capability to take back everything that had been taken from him, everything he could still feel at night.
This has been Mars Needs Moms 3: Mars Needs Help Now with your host: Bret Huston.
There was a spark of hope in my mind that the trilogy wouldn’t end here. But that’s a story for another day…