End of an Era

The drive home was silent. The ride seemed longer this time, both of us trying to wrap our minds around this new truth about what we were doing. When we finally spoke, we agreed that Big Mama had been fun to make and an intriguing learning experience, but we vowed to never make anything anywhere near that big again.


What I didn’t tell you earlier, because it seemed a bit off topic, is that when we made our first visit to the chemical supply room to procure the needed chemicals, we also happened to leave with some additional chemicals that weren’t needed for the Frictional Impact Explosives. You see, the pamphlet that had the recipe for the explosives also had a couple of other recipes that we thought looked interesting.

Besides the explosives, what caught our attention was a recipe for smoke bombs. The smoke bomb recipe seemed more like it might actually work than the other. We decided that it would be a nice consolation prize if in fact the main focus of our adventure turned out to be a dud.

I don’t recall much about these, because we really never paid much attention to them after the explosives worked so well.

When we rediscovered these chemicals, that we had all but forgotten about for several months, we decided that we should give the smoke bombs a try. Without using any of our newfound “Big Mama” wisdom regarding the size of the toys, we quickly got to work and prepared a gigantic smoke bomb.

Unlike the explosives that had to dry overnight, this baby was ready in an instant. We took it out in the backyard and lit the fuse.

In a matter of seconds our entire backyard was full of greenish-blue smoke. It was so dense that we couldn’t see more that a foot in any direction. Once again, the results were quite impressive. This pamphlet was turning out to be a goldmine.

Seeing as we had used all the chemicals we had on hand to build this one smoke bomb, (I told you it was big) we decided to make a second trip that very night to the chemical supply room to get some more.

This is the point at which our careers as outlaw chemists made a 180-degree turn in the wrong direction. You see, up until this point all of our somewhat shady maneuvers were well thought out and planned with meticulous detail. This mission, however, had several poorly planned elements, as well as more than its fair share of stupid heat-of-the-moment decisions. For the sake of this story we’ll call them all mistakes.

Call it pride, call it arrogance, call it stupidity, call it whatever you want, but we decided that we didn’t need to wait until the wee hours of the morning to make our chemical run. Oh no, we decided that we could easily sneak into the building at about 10:30 that evening. (Mistake #1)

Having checked the bathroom every time we were in the science building, we were quite certain that the window in the bathroom would still be unlocked. We packed a bag with the empty chemical containers needed to make the smoke bombs and not the frictional impact explosives. This decision would turn out to be the only good decision we made the entire evening. Then we waited for 10:30.

We entered the building without a hitch and quickly made our way to the second floor. Heading down toward the science classrooms, we were passing a second stairwell when down below we heard the sound of jingling keys. It was one of the school’s graduate student security guards. For the most part what they did was make rounds through each of the buildings making sure doors were locked.

The guard looked up and saw two students standing at the top of the stairs glaring down.

We took off running (Mistake #2) down the hall and around a corner that led into an area of the building that was unfamiliar to either of us. (Mistake #3) It turned out to be a row of locked offices, a pair of bathrooms and a dead end. Panicking, we slid into the men’s room.

Realizing that even if the window would unlock, we were on the second floor and staying put meant getting caught for sure, we decided to stash the backpack (Mistake #4) behind a trashcan, run out past the guard, down the stairs and out of the building. Based on the rather large waistline of the security guard, we were both quite sure we could easily outrun him.

We stashed the backpack, peeked cautiously out the bathroom door and took off toward the nearest stairs. It worked like a charm and the guard didn’t even have time to turn around, much less follow us.

We had gotten away again…or so we thought.

Safe at home, we set our clock of 3:00 am, intending to head back, retrieve the backpack and put an end to the night’s fiasco. However, it wasn’t our clock that woke us up at about midnight, it was the phone.

Seems the university police had found a backpack in the science building with a name on it, and the chief of police wanted to know if we had time to come have a conversation with him down at the campus police station.

Now there’s a good reason why our university’s police chief was nicknamed Barney Fife. Among other things, this guy was running across the court at a basketball game to break up a fight between spectators when his gun fell out of his holster. If that’s not bad enough, he didn’t even notice that it had happened and a second fight broke out between students who were trying to grab the guy’s gun. So, it was no big shock that Barney wasn’t taken all that seriously.

All the same, we were terrified.

We told him we’d be there in 15 minutes, but Barney insisted on picking us up. I had never been to, let alone seen, the university police station, but as we pulled up in front I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.

As it turned out, the police chief and his one deputy were pretty low in the pecking order when it came to office assignments. The university had an old house that used to be the president’s home back in the 1920’s. Being stuck in that old house would be just about the worst location on the entire campus. However, Barney would have given his single bullet to be in the old president’s home. You see, even old textbook storage ranked higher than the sheriff and his posse, because they were stationed, not in the actual house, but out back in the dilapidated old garage.

We walked in and an officer showed us to some chairs and pulled the garage door down with a crash. I felt like I was stuck in a really bad movie, as we just sat there waiting for someone to say something…anything.

The chief took a seat behind his desk, and shuffling though a huge stack of papers he produced a five by seven inch note card. Looking up he said, “I just want to make sure I get this right.”

Clearing his throat he read the card, “You have the right to remain silent, anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law…” and we both snapped to attention.

I’m sure he read the rest but I don’t remember anything more.

When I finally regained my mental composure, he was firing off questions about the contents of the backpack and what we were doing in the science building.

Turns out that the university had been searching, rather unsuccessfully, for the person or persons responsible for leaving tiny bombs, as he called them, all around campus. It evidently had not taken the science department long to determine the ingredients being used to make the explosives, but they had no idea where the culprits were getting the chemicals from, since as far as they could tell, no unauthorized personnel had been in the chemical supply room.

I don’t remember much about the actual interrogation, seeing as my mind was still spinning from having just been read my rights. I know it was a lengthy discussion, in which we were both quite scared and said maybe all of five words.

After what felt like an eternity, we were told not to leave town and that we would be contacted after the science department had determined if the chemicals we had in our backpack were the ones being used to make the bombs. (Which of course they weren’t since we hadn’t brought those containers with us)

The deputy took us home and we immediately washed all the remaining frictional impact explosives chemicals down the drain, got rid of the containers, and burned the pamphlet. We were sad to see it go, because it was the end of an era…a frictional impact era.


Note:
We were contacted about a week later and told that, due to a lack of evidence, nothing more was going to be done regarding the chemicals we had, but we were sternly warned not to be in any building after hours without permission. A warning that we took seriously and heeded for the rest of our time at the university…well, kind of.