kaboom

She couldn’t understand why he saw snake-bite kits in his sleep. But that’s what he said to her that morning. He opened his eyes momentarily and muttered, “We really should get a snake-bite kit.”

“How strange,” she thought, for they hadn’t even seen a snake in weeks!

With the exception of the few who slithered around an old used car lot...but were they snakes or were they weasels? When animals wear pants, she has a tough time telling them apart. Yes, a snake-bite kit seemed strange, but she made a note of it nonetheless.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll do it.”

It wasn’t long later when she believed she had discovered the answer.

It came to her in her book, page 153:

BERNARD MICKEY WRANGLE’S FAVORITE HOMEMADE
BOMB RECIPES

The hearts and diamonds bomb:

Take a deck of ordinary playing cards, the old-fashioned paper kind, cut out the red spots and soak them overnight like beans. Alcohol is the best soaking solution, but tap
water will suffice. Plug one end of a short length of pipe. Pack the soggy
hearts and diamonds into the pipe. On pre-plastic playing cards, the red spots
were printed with diazo dye, a chemical that has anunstable, high-energy bond
with nitrogen. So you’ve got some nitro of sorts, now you’ll be needing
glycerin. Hand lotion works nicely. Glug a little lotion into the pipe. To
activate the quasi-nitroglycerin, you’ll require potassium permanganate. That
you can find in the snake-bite section of any good first-aid chest. Add a dash of
the potassium permanganate and plug the other end of the pipe. Heat the pipe. A
direct flame is best, but simply laying the pipe atop a hot radiator will turn
the trick. Take cover! The Woodpecker used a hearts and diamonds bomb to release
himself from McNeil Island the first time that he was confined
there.
(Tom Robbins, Still Life
Woodpecker)

He was planning on blowing something up!

Admittedly, she was a little uneasy about the idea. Playing with fire was fun and all, but she didn’t want anyone to get hurt.

Immediately, she confronted him. “I’ve figured you out!” she cried. “It’s right here, in my book, right before the Froot Loops and Bat Shit Bomb!”

She showed him the page.

“I know your plan,” she said. “And I just want to say…that I think I’m willing to help, just let me think about it a little bit more.”

And so she went off to think about it. And then she thought and thought and thought.She thought for so long and so hard...she thought her head might nearly explode. But then she figured it out.

“That’s what we’ll do!” she said excitedly. “We’ll plant thought bombs! We’ll blow them up into tiny pieces! We’ll deflate bad ideas and make room for the good ones. We’ll become the pyromaniac prozac of the nation!

“We’ll blow up those bad thoughts of the past, that haunt us in the present, and push us away from the future:

The thoughts that come with rainy days? Boom! Gone.

Those thoughts one gets when they quit quitting smoking? Squash. No more!

Those thoughts you think when you wake up in the morning after having one more than the one too many? Whabam!

Those thoughts I get skipping the sidewalk, crossing the block where there's one name plus another? Kaboom!

Thoughts that accompany uncomfortable silences, discouraging reflections, ‘I-don’t-cares’, unpaid bills, counted calories, sour milk, dirty laundry, smelly feet, and Sundays - All of them, blasted! Blown off this planet forever!

Thoughts of self-loathing, apathy, loneliness, bigotry, anger, revenge, jealously, isolation, frustration, hesitation, hopelessness, destitution, and grief will become putty in our hands – actions made powerless by the fatal reaction of quasi-nitroglycerin and potassium permanganate!”

“Woo hoo! We’ll be dropping thought bombs all over the place!” she exclaimed. It was time she decided, to get down to business.

“Okay, you keep cutting out hearts,” she said. “I’ll take care of the diamonds!”

Excitedly, she ran in search of scissors.

She wondered what sort of outfit a brain bandit such as herself might wear...

“Whoa! Silly girl,” he said. “Clearly, you aren’t playing with a full deck! I have no intentions of throwing bombs – at people, places, thoughts, or anything else! I just think a snake-bite kit would be a smart to have – for when we camp.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling somewhat deflated. It was just starting to sound like fun. “Are your sure?”

“One hundred percent certain,” he said.

Damn, man...detonated! Her plan had blown a fuse.

"Perhaps you are right,” she said. “I mean, if we take away the bad thoughts, we’ll never appreciate the good thoughts. How will we know if we aren’t feeling bad thoughts, or if they aren’t even there to be felt? That could be very misleading. And how would thoughts appear on an endangered species list? What in the world was I thinking?”

“Shut it,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

She picked up a pen and put it down on paper. She scribbled ‘snake-bite kit’ on the grocery list, right under soy milk and coffee.