Does it count if you didn't buy it for yourself but for a friend?

I have a friend with what is called an "earthy" sense of humor. He enjoys being outrageous but has the winning quality of being willing to lay his opinion and reputation on the line for things he believes in - and has done so. That was why, on a motorcycle trek across county, I had spent six or seven thousand miles looking for "the perfect gift" for him. With only two thousand miles to go before getting home, I was starting to worry. I hadn't seen anything that seemed remotely appropriate - but that was before I stopped in at Wall Drug.

For those of you who don't know, Wall Drug is a strange place on the Western plains, somewhere in the middle of South Dakota, a drug store in the town of Wall. At least that it what it began as. Years ago, its claim to fame was that it offered free icewater to travellers. In the middle of a Great Plains summer, icewater is a strong attraction and people started stopping off for the free icewater and of course they bought things. The owners, realizing they had a good thing, expaded their advertising until if you got to within 500 miles of Wall from any direction, a roadsign told you about it. To further lure tourists, the owners got a buffalo and then a bear. Kids loved them. They got tourist dreck brought in by the truckload but it was all done with the same sort of sense of humor that made the Burma Shave signs so memorable and winning. Soon, Wall Drug was a "must stop".

I had been there twenty years before, as a child. I had ridden a tame mechanical bucking bronco and had my picture taken on it, sporting the cowboy regalia they supplied that is so authentic for a nine year old.

This trip, it seemed that Wall Drug was even bigger and more kitchy than I remembered it but I had a feeling this might be the place to find the perfect gift for Fritz - and I was right. There was a tray filled items so exquisitely correct as a gift for this particular person that I probably squealed with delight at their discovery. What I had found were petrified dinosaur droppings! I bought several pounds worth and got back on the highway.

Fritz's reaction? He was overjoyed. Not only that, within a few weeks, he had learned a lot about dino droppings and was happy to share the information with me. Apparently, it is a whole field of study, a subset, I guess, of paleontology. The coprolites (as I recall they were named) are a great source of information about a lot of things. I guess that would include diet, size, size of colon, for starters.

Anyway, that's my strange purchase.

Sourdough

Now, Catspaw 49, if that doesn't loosen up your vowels (and consonants) I have misjudged you. Come to think of it, I'll bet you and Fritz would really enjoy each other.