You Can Sell Anything If You Package it Right

Recently, my wife found a few chunks of memory. These 'chunks' recalled to mind our entertaining venture into the wonderful world of business. Now I am not a business person; neither is my wife, despite her ownership of an M.B.A. This business, however, needed no sophisticated plan, little expertise, and only a little work. Its entertainment value was enough for us. it might have been a riproaring financial success if we had known what we were doing and cared, but, the way it was, was fine with us. It was called, "Endangered Feces," a phrase originated by the late Gilda Radner but copyrighted by us.

It began when we discovered that Alabama was one of only two places in the world where you could find pyratized coprolites. These glittering gems only formed in chalk beds, of which there are only two of sufficient size, the cliffs of Dover, and a large area of land, most of it federal, in Alabama. The person who originally brought these to our attention was, in fact, a federal ranger but we never inquired too closely as to the propriety of the source. I do know that after the original number this individual brought us, the remainder was legitimately given us by a farmer whose land was filled with them. "Sure, take all you want," was his instruction. We did.

Coprolite are fossilized 'droppings', excrement that has been replaced by stone, retaining its original shape, as in the trees in the petrified forest, only not originally wood. These coprolites, however, were nearly unique. They came from the cretaceous era, were 65 to 90 million years old, and they were iron pyrite. When dug out of their longtime bed of chalky ground and cleaned (hydrochloric acid), they looked like gold nuggets. Iron pyrite, of course, is 'fools gold'. This fired my wife's imagination. She ordered a bunch of small Italian leather bags, an equal number of gold foil sheets and small boxes to match. We went into the business of selling turds, pretty turds, inorganic turds, but, in a real sense, turds nevertheless. And we marketed them as "Endangered Feces."