Passing it on

The Time Bomb is now in Rachel's hands.

Why would I give a dangerous object to a curious, uninhibited,
and adventurous eight-year-old child, you ask?

Ah! But then you don't know about the Time Bomb. A dangerous
object, yes. But perhaps for reasons you haven't considered.

This conversation, between two parties of the first and second
part forever to remain nameless, took place on an unspecified day
at some time after eleven hours post meridian.

"You know how they used to take hot-water bottles to warm the
foot of their beds in the old days? Maybe we should do that--
with ice."

"That might work in Fresno. Here... the mattress would get
moldy. 'Achoo! Achoo! I've got these terrible allergies and I
can't figure out what's causing them!!!' "

*laughter*

"Patch the Pirate has this song about someone not cleaning his
room... 'the garbage putrefied, my guinea pig died, a creepy,
slimy fungus took up residence among us... so now I clean my
bedroom every day.' ... and somewhere in there the ants carry
things off, too. --But things like that seem to happen in this
room even though we DO clean it."

"Well, at least the ants haven't carried off the alarm clock
yet."

"They wouldn't WANT it!!! --It would drive all of them away from
the ant hill forever."

"A bomb... maybe they'd want it for a bomb. 'Look, let's lob it
over here into this other ant hill!' "

"A time bomb! It would be a time bomb!!"