My
late husband’s birthday was a couple weeks ago and it made me think about all
of the times I tried to get him a special gift that would make him so excited,
he’d want to dance a jig.
Most
of the time, however, I failed miserably, even though I always had the best of intentions.
But
one of those attempts came to mind the other day as I was thinking about his
birthday.
Back
in 2005, Pam, my pen pal in Scotland, sent an e-mail telling me she’d thought
of the perfect birthday gift for him. She said she wanted to adopt a
bison in his name.
You see, my husband was a rabid collector of anything and everything that had to do with buffalo or bison. In fact, our formerly all-colonial house had so many statues, pictures, sculptures, wall hangings, artifacts, paintings, etc. of bison crammed into it, you’d think we were living on the Ponderosa.
As
visions of a big buffalo bull grazing on our front lawn filled my mind, I asked
Pam how and where she planned to adopt the animal. She explained that the
adoption was more like a sponsorship, and the buffalo would stay where it was
(thank goodness).
She
added that she’d done an Internet search and had found a zoo not too far
from New Hampshire that had nothing but buffalo in it. She said she thought it
might be a good place to start.
I
was certain that if such an all-buffalo zoo did indeed exist somewhere near
here, my husband already would have pitched a tent there and been living among
the beasts.
“What
zoo is it?” I asked her.
“It’s
called the Buffalo Zoo!” she said.
I
couldn’t help but laugh. I really hated to burst her bubble, but I had to tell
her that Buffalo was the city in which the zoo was located, not a zoo filled
with buffalo.
She
then asked me if maybe I could help her find a place in America that offered
buffalo adoptions. She said it would be easier if I handled everything at my
end and then she’d just send me the money for it.
“I’m
willing to go as high as $80,” she said.
Well,
there was no way I was going to let her spend that kind of money on a birthday
gift, so I set out to search the Internet for a place that not only offered
buffalo adoptions, but cheap buffalo adoptions. I immediately found the
Adopt-A-Bison Program in Oklahoma, listed through an organization called the
Nature Conservancy. I contacted them, only to be informed that they weren’t
conducting the program any more. They did, however, ask me if I’d like to adopt
a coral reef to help save the environment.
After
what seemed like hours more of online searching, I came across a place called
the Dickerson Zoo in Springfield, Missouri. It offered adoptions for only $30.
The package included a personalized, official certificate of adoption, an
actual photo of the adopted animal, an information sheet, periodic newsletters,
a free pass to the zoo and more. Excited, I printed out the adoption form,
filled in the information, wrote out a check and mailed everything to the zoo.
Three
days later, I received a phone call. “Hello,” a woman’s voice, sounding just a
bit uneasy, said. “I’m calling from the Dickerson Park Zoo in Missouri. You
filled out an adoption form for a bison?”
“That’s
right,” I said brightly.
“Well,
um, we don’t have any bison here,” she said. “I mean, I’ve worked here for
years and we’ve never had a bison!”
“Are you sure?” I asked, as if the poor woman
somehow had overlooked a 2,000-pound bison all those years.
“Positive.
Can I interest you in another animal? Perhaps a nice black bear?”
“No,
but thank you,” I said, my tone doing little to conceal my disappointment. “It
has to be a buffalo. My husband loves buffalo…and it’s his birthday.”
“Oh. I’m really sorry we can’t help you,” she
said. “I’ll be sure to return your check.”
About
a half-hour after I hung up, I turned on my computer and there was an e-mail
message from the woman I’d just spoken with on the phone. She felt so bad for
my poor bison-less birthday boy, she sent me a list of places where she thought
I might be able to adopt a bison.
I
eagerly checked out each one. The prices ranged from $100 all the way up to
$500 for an adoption. I was just about to give up on the whole idea and tell my
pen pal to just buy my husband a bison figurine and he’d be thrilled. But then
I checked out the last place on the list; the Adopt a Species program at the
National Zoo in Washington, DC.
The
website said that for a donation, I could adopt any animal from the zoo’s list
and get a personalized certificate of adoption, a photo, fact sheet and six
issues of the zoo’s newsletter. And best of all, when I checked their list of
the many creatures available for adoption…from a giant hissing cockroach to a
white-cheeked gibbon…there was the American buffalo! I think I actually had a
tear in my eye when I saw it.
Quickly,
I filled out the adoption form, wrote a check and sent everything to the zoo.
And then, because the list had said, “subject to change,” I held my breath. I
figured that with my luck, the zoo probably had only one arthritic, toothless
old buffalo and it would drop dead the day after I mailed the application.
A
week later, a packet arrived from the zoo. The certificate of adoption had my
husband’s name professionally printed in calligraphy on it, and there was a
beautiful photo of “his” buffalo along with a fact sheet and a copy of
“Zoogoer” magazine.
Pam
was thrilled when I told her that her gift idea finally had been fulfilled, and
just in time for my husband’s birthday.
And
when my husband opened his gift, he was so excited to be part owner of a
genuine bison, he was ready to hop the next flight to Washington, DC just so he
could make sure his new “son” was being treated well.
I was pleased to see him so thrilled about a gift, but the fact remained that even though I'd done all of the footwork, it technically was a gift from Pam, not me, which was disappointing... especially when he didn’t seem even half as excited about the painting of a buffalo I’d paid $20 to a local artist to paint for him.
The fact that the buffalo looked as if it had been the victim of some horrible, disfiguring accident, or the artist had painted it while wearing a blindfold and holding the paintbrush in his teeth shouldn’t have mattered.
After all, it's the thought that counts.
# # #
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net
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