About the author
I had a happy childhood. Here I was at a llama farm near Cotati with my older cousin, Lawrence Hunter. Great guy and I still love him and his family.
Think (or better yet click) here to get to our main page.
rememBer ChIldhood by Brendan ZaChary AllIson
“I demand a full refund for my stay and my flight here and back. And I’ll still call my lawyer. I paid for a week here at an adults-only all-inclusive resort. This-” she waved her hand expansively at the pool area filled with happy guests- “isn’t what you promised at all.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Richards. We are meeting our commitment. You have unlimited drinks and meals. Our hotel has four restaurants with cuisine from different regions of Mexico.”
“What of it? I can get a range of Mexican food at home. We have two Taco Bells!” She held up two fingers in front of his eyes, then waved them left and right like a cop checking for nystagmus during a field sobriety test. “You understand? Two? Tres?”
“I am so sorry. But I understand your main concern is with the adults-only commitment.”
“Right. There are at least 50 elderly buffoons here in the pool area wearing swim diapers. Look at them! See – that guest with the gray beard – doing a cannonball into the pool!” She paused to angrily wipe the resulting pool water off her face. “And everyone there laughed at getting splashed like a bunch of kids without a care in the world. Over there, old people tossing a football. Over there, fogeys listening to a boy band. Dancing and cheering and jumping. Just like children!”
“Ma’am, all of those people are grandparents. There are no children in the hotel. Everyone there has a wristband indicating they are guests.”
“Yes, and they’re also wearing those absurd brain-scrambling headbands that make you feel and act like a kid again. They don’t look like children, but they do act like them.” She shook her head. “Yelling, screaming, dancing, probably pissing in the pool. Look, three of them are playing marbles. Publicly embarrassing everyone here and they don’t even care. It’s a disgrace!”
Author Commentary
The character of Mrs. Richards is based on a great guest in one episode of Fawlty Towers. This clip even mentions her brain. “It’s a disgrace” is a quote from that clip. This character isn’t the same; for example, I never mentioned she’s British and she talks differently. I did check and they do have Taco Bells in Britain. I suppose it’s better than much British fare.
I was in Mexico when I wrote this. Tourists like her are not unprecedented. Their confidence in their knowledge of Mexico, its food, and its language greatly exceeds their knowledge. “Tres” means “three” (not two) and was the childhood nickname of my old friend William the third, with whom I watched Fawlty Towers many times.
Realism
Ethically and practically, this is highly unrealistic any time soon.
From a neuroscience perspective, I don’t think this is all that far off. In this BCI-fi story, there’s no apparent check to see how safe, complete, reversible, or effective it is. The users might be different from themselves as children in many ways that aren’t apparent here. TCDS or TMS might disrupt some parts of the frontolimbic system to temporarily disable executive oversight. There are many invasive options, but that’s less viable for a vacation – at least given that <100 people have been implanted with a BCI and it’s still far from a casual procedure.
Until then, there’s always alcohol.
Hope
It depends on your interpretation of Mrs. Richards and her outrage. I’d love to take a vacation back to childhood. Especially if it was safe, reversible, I wasn’t being recorded (neural, audio, video, etc.), nobody familiar would see me except people I trust, and many other caveats.
Edit History
I wrote this in December 2025 and posted it in May 2026.
Comments and Replies
Comment away!
Leave a Reply