Another time, I was at a Main Street bar in Ames. By the front of the bar was this long, waist high, decorative planter full of fake flowers. I was standing next to it for most of the evening. At one point, I reached down into the planter and felt an undefined, fist sized object with weird bumps on it. I didn't know what it was. It was too deep in the planter to be able to see it through the fake plants, but it was well secured to the bottom. Over the next two hours, as I got drunker and drunker, I worked on removing this unknown object. I got one end loosened up, but the other end wouldn't budge. By this time, I was overwhelmed with curiosity. My friends kept asking me what I was doing. I was determined to find out what it was. Suddenly, around last call, it finally gave way. I cried out in triumph as I pulled out a little fiberglass rock, upon which sat a little fiberglass toad, wearing little fiberglass overalls, and playing a little fiberglass banjo. The rock had been mounted with 3 screws, that each had been driven approximately half an inch into the bottom of the planter.
So excited was I to claim my valuable prize, that I immediately assumed the bar employees would try to take it from me. Thinking quickly, I made a beeline for the back door, figuring the alley behind the bar would be my best escape route. In my haste, I was not looking where I was going, instead trying to spy any staff members who might try to stop me. My inattentiveness led to me falling off of the loading dock behind the bar, and damn near puncturing my lung on one of the screws on the "rock" I had worked so hard to attain.
It was a small price to pay for my trophy, which I pridefully displayed for years until my wife decided it was junk and threw it away.