When I was a kid growing up in North Florida (40 miles from Gainesville), I had a summer job working at a Gulf gas station at the first exit for Lake City...we were always looking for stuff to sell to the yankees driving I-75...over the years, we sold them coconuts from Ft Lauderdale that we picked up off the ground and loaded up a U-Haul trailer (3 for $1)...you would not believe what a tourist will buy as a Florida souvenier...

One day a snooty middle aged lady comes in driving a big Lincoln...while we are servicing the car, she wanders about...suddenly she stops and exlaims "Oh my God!!!"...we were wondering what was suddenly wrong...she then points out into a cow pasture behind the station and exclaims that she just has to have some of that "stuff"...we asked what "stuff" she was referring to, as we only saw cows and pasture patties...yep, she wanted the spanish moss growing in the oak trees that dotted the pasture...

Now, I am not above taking the bucks off of a yankee...far be it from me to try and stop stupidity in the making...however, having a knowledgeable history of spanish moss and the critters that hang around in it, I proceeded to make an attempt at telling the lady that she shouldn't have any of that "stuff"...being the more intelligent person that she was, what with her superior yankee brain and all, she mistakenly interpreted my comments to be more of a 'negotiating' tactic...

A couple minutes of really trying to explain why she did not want anything to do with that spanish moss went by, and her all the while interrupting, she suddenly and persistently stated that she was going to have that "stuff" even if it cost her more than $100...I was stopped dead in my tracks and looked at her in bewilderment and said, "How much?"...now she knew she had me hooked, so she again said even if it cost her more than $100...I then inquired as to exactly how much she wanted to take back home to New York, and she said all that she could fit into her car...told her that is a lot of spanish moss, to which she promptly upped the ante to $150...

Cha-ching!!!...done deal...I even got her an iron rake to help her pull it out of the tree...of course, she had to get it herself as I was working and had absolutely no intention of getting into all of that spanish moss...loaned her the rake, opened the gate to the pasture and let her go...for about an hour we intently watched as she pulled down gobs of that spanish moss and stuffed it into every nook and cranny in that big ol' Lincoln...we are talking the trunk, back seat, floorboard area, in the rear window dashboard...after all, she wanted to be sure she got her money's worth because in the late 60s, $150 was a boodle of bucks...drove back over to the gate, gave us the rake, and was on her way home to be the envy of all of her snooty friends...

We young entrepreneurs were laughing for the rest of the day...even made up a sign that said "Spanish Moss For Sale"...when the owner of the station came in later in the day, he wanted to know WTF that damn sign was for...we told him the story...he started laughing and then asked us if we bothered to tell her "that damn spanish moss is loaded with redbugs"...I told him I tried, but that she kept interrupting me...and then came that $100+ comment...sealed the deal for me and sent an ass load of redbugs home with her to New York...we all laughed out loud for hours imagining how things went between her and her new traveling companions...there is a God...