- Barbara comes into the house and finds Billy in the rumpus room. She's carrying a copy of his letter to the Ilium newspaper about Tralfamadore, and she's freaking out.
- Barbara's 21 and kind of mean because she's had too much responsibility too soon: she had to arrange her mother's funeral and she's worried that Billy has gone senile thanks to his plane crash.
- Billy is only 46 and wants to persuade Barbara that he's not senile, but he doesn't have time to think of his booming optometry business because he has a higher purpose.
- That higher purpose is to show mankind the wisdom of his "little green friends" (2.9.4) on Tralfamadore.