Summations Only

you'd think it would be obvious that a bare circuit board with a few transistors, wires, and a clock isn't a bomb because it lacks explosive material. like, there's nothing there to go "boom".try telling a school official or a police office that without seeming like you know how to make a bomb, though. like. it's a clock. it's telling the time. did they think it was a coincidence that it showed the time? i think part of this which may be getting swept under the rug here is that pretending you have a bomb is also kind of a bad thing, and maybe a crime if it seems like you're making a threat. i dunno, i am not a lawyer. but i'm pretty sure bomb threats are illegal, and it may be that "it looks like a bomb in the movies" is meant to say that they thought he was trying to scare people or something.still, this is fucking stupid. yeah, that's thing. if the teacher seriously thought it was a bomb, he or she would not have put it in their desk drawer after confiscating it, and there would have been a bomb squad called. no adult involved actually thought this was a bomb, and if they did, well, they should probably all lose their jobs for a) being so stupid and b) not handling a threat they believed was credible in a serious and appropriate manner.i probably haven't shared this before, but i was investigated by the police once on suspicion of bombing. so this kind of makes me personally upset.i was in high school when columbine happened, and it changed everything to do with the way the administration treated the kids (especially the awkward, black-wearing, outcast types like yours truly during the blunder-years). i was out of school the day of the columbine massacre (sick? lazy? i forget), and being the awkward, black-wearing outcast type, i was quickly the butt of jokes and the target of fairly vicious rumors immediately afterward. literally the next day, someone called in a bomb threat to my school. it was credible enough that we were evacuated from our classrooms for maybe 45 minutes to an hour, while they searched the school, i think with a bomb-sniffing dog. rumors + bomb threat = obviously i did it.i was searched by the administration the next day, and suspended -- i'd been dumb enough to have a pocket knife on me, which i used for trimming pencils and such in art classes. yeah, listen to adults who say "maybe don't bring that to school tomorrow." so, while i was off school, the police showed up at my door. apparently the rumors meant i was now a lead/suspect in the case.you know why i wasn't taken from my house in handcuffs? because i am white.i mean, literally. it was clear from the interview that they didn't think it was remotely credible that i was involved, and still asked their standard pointed questions without much enthusiasm. amazingly, they let me actually hear the bomb threat; they had a recording. thick hispanic accent, older voice, not great english.and that was that. school still sucked for a while when i got back, but this easily could have gone another way.