Canteen carelessness spurs bank brouhaha

Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

BOULDER - It started when a buddy mailed Timmy O'Neill a rusty old canteen they'd found while climbing together in Yosemite National Park.

The situation escalated after O'Neill, 37, spaced out and left the suspicious-looking package at a CHASE ATM in Boulder on Monday.

A bank employee saw the duct-taped box only minutes after reading a story online about a bomb that had blown up an ATM in Las Vegas earlier that morning.

The bank manager called Boulder police, who brought in the bomb squad and used bank records to track down O'Neill through a Hungarian ex-roommate.

O'Neill, who had been in town for only a week after a three-month climbing, paddling and comedy tour of Scotland, Australia and the Grand Canyon, was still trying to make sense of the experience Tuesday morning.

"What a strange life I live," the professional climber and stand-up comic said, searching for the right one-liner. "I've been known to turn a head or two, but my package has never stopped traffic before."

The following is his account of what happened.

Let's see. My day started pretty standard. I woke up, got some coffee and headed to the post office to see if anybody had sent me a sponsorship check.

At the post office, I got a yellow slip. Was it something good? Something bad? I was feelin' lucky so I told myself, all right, I'll stand in line. This could be something good. The guy comes back with a mysterious old beat-up black box, with duct tape all over it.

I rip it open and it's this old rusty canteen I'd found on a climbing trip to Yosemite last October and thrown in the back of my buddy Jeff 'Jefe' Cunningham's truck.

Jefe has sent me this thing as a joke. Little does he realize that I'm soon to forget it at an ATM.

So I go to the ATM, deposit a $100 sponsorship check and ride my bike to the Boulder Public Library to check my e-mail.

Then I get this call. But I'm in the library so I ignore it.

Then the same number calls again. OK, that's the code for emergency - the double ring. It's either something good or it's something bad. Well, this was a mixture of both.

I answer the phone and it's that voice - that deep, stentorian voice of authority: 'This is so-and-so from the Boulder Police Department.'

Every time I hear that voice I can harken back to when I was a child and my mother would get the call from the police department about one of my brothers.

'Did you forget something at an ATM over on Canyon and 14th Street?' the voice asked.

As soon as he said that, I knew what it was. But I had to whisper because I was at the library.

'Yes, I did,' I whispered. And then it hit me. 'Oh my God, I bet that box looks exactly like a bomb.' He was not expecting me to say that.

'Yes, it does,' he boomed. 'What's in it?'

And I whispered, 'A rusty canteen, man. Calm down.'

'Where are you?' he asked.

'I'm at the public library,' I whispered, sounding totally conspiratorial.

'We're going to come get you,' he said.

But I told him, no, I'll ride my bike over.

'OK. What are you wearing?' he asked.

I told him, 'I'm wearing jeans, a T-shirt, thongs and I've got a messenger bag. I'm pretty caffeinated, though, so watch out.'

I rode over there and I couldn't believe it. There's a major bomb scare goin' down because of this rusty canteen. Fourteenth Street was blocked off with a squad car, lights spinning. There's yellow police tape across both ends of the street.

All the officers' arms are either crossed or their hands are on their hips. They're not happy. One of them's tapping her toe. They are nonplused with O'Neill.

One of them whispers to me that there was an ATM bombing just that morning in Vegas.

The cops - they're always the same way. They have to be stern. I could be the next Una-bomber. I'm the connection between Nevada and Boulder. Here I am - the next guy. I can't stand another user fee so I'm blowing up the ATM.

There's three or four bomb technicians. They've got an X-ray device wired up on either side of the package. They looked like DJs, spinning records on 14th Street.

I'm all disheveled and hyper-caffeinated.

'You guys, I'm so sorry,' I said. 'I can't believe this is happening right now.'

'What's in the box?' they asked me.

'It's a rusty canteen,' I said.

I look down and it's a perfect bomb box. It's a suspicious package. It looks like someone laid a trap.

There's an R2D2 robot and they're like, 'We were just getting ready to get R2D2 to take the box to the homeless park across the street and get him to blow it up.'

I opened the package. I told them, 'I wish I could offer you something to drink, but here it is, it's a useless canteen.'

They just shook their heads.

I talked to the bank manager. I apologized for causing trouble. I asked him, 'Are my user fees gonna go up?' He said 'Buddy, they just tripled.'

I got on my bike after that and rode away in the wrong direction. I just wanted to get away so I could call somebody and tell them what happened. It's like this really strange comedic euphoria swept over me. I'd just hit this gold mine with this material that I'm gonna get to layer into a hilarious comic routine.

I called Jefe. He can't believe it. He's like, 'Only you dude. Only Timmy O would figure out how to spin a simple canteen into a bomb scare.'

Who is Timmy O'Neill?

Known as "America's most outrageous climber," Timmy O'Neill, 37, of Boulder, has set international speed climbing records, kayaked the entire length of the Grand Canyon five times and scaled urban buildings without ropes.

He travels the world giving outdoor-oriented slide show comedy routines.

Recently, O'Neill founded Paradox Sports (www.para doxsports.org), a nonprofit that tries to get disabled people involved in outdoor recreation.

• To learn more and watch him star as "Captain Underpants," left, in a video promoting Patagonia's Common Threads Garment Recycling Program, go to www.timmy oneill.com.