Why, it's petrified whale barf, of course. Otherwise known as ambergris, it's often an ingredient in fine perfumes. It's rare and therefore valuable - the four pounds of ambergris (if that's really what it is) Dorothy Ferreira got from her sister for Christmas this year might be worth as much as $18,000, reports the New York Times this morning. But here's the catch. Some "endangered species legislation" dating back to the 1970s makes buying and selling the stuff illegal.
Which doesn't make much sense, does it? I mean, if this whale vomit is so valuable (sometimes it's called "floating gold") you'd want to keep the whales alive and puking, wouldn't you? That'd be unendangering, seems too me, but hey, Bunky, it's a law and laws don't need to make no sense.
Anyway, let's hope it's not illegal to give the stuff away or Dorothy's siser, who lives in Waterloo, Iowa, is in a heap of trouble now, assuming anybody knows where Iowa is. I might have seen it once myself - Iowa, I mean, not whale barf - on the other end of a bridge in Galena but I was too darn lazy to walk across and make sure. Anyway, whatever it was, it looked more like South Dakota than Illinois.
Whale barf looks sort of like a big green thing. If I really wanted to rub something behind my ears I'm not sure that would be it.
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