Garth Pouncey came to the Brown Detective Agency after spending $3 on a dinosaur-hunting license from Bugs Meany. He was concerned that maybe Bugs tricked him into buying something that he didn’t need.
Really? Garth still hasn’t figured out that dinosaurs are extinct? Maybe he should consider himself lucky that he’s only out $3, because this kid really doesn’t deserve to have money in the first place.
After looking at the license, Encyclopedia remarked that you can send away for “these fun licenses,” which means that Bugs sent away for the specially printed fake license and only got $3 for it. How much did it cost to have printed? How much was shipping and handling? Bugs couldn’t have been getting that big of a return if he was selling them at cost. Why was he wasting his time?
Garth explained that he had taken his bicycle to Mill Pond for a swim. His bike hit a rut and he fell into Bugs, who then dropped his towel into the water. Garth decided that the right thing to do would be to offer Bugs his towel. As a “favor,” Bugs told Garth that he would sell him a dinosaur-hunting license.
Encyclopedia told Garth that he’d get his money back. Garth also wanted his towel back. His mother had taken it straight out of the dryer and he knew he’d get in trouble if he didn’t bring it back.
The two of them went to the Tigers’ Clubhouse where they saw a towel hanging up in tree branches, but Garth was worried that Bugs was going to deny getting a towel from him.
That’s exactly what happened. Garth thought that maybe there would still be soap flakes on the towel from the top of his mom’s dryer, but when Encyclopedia checked the soft and fluffy towel, he couldn’t find any.
Bugs stood by his word and said that if they could prove that that towel wasn’t his, then he would return the towel and the money.
Encyclopedia pointed out that if it had been Bugs’ towel drying in the sun, it would be stiff, but since this towel was soft and fluffy, then that meant that it came out of the dryer.
Wait, so that meant that Bugs didn’t actually use the towel at all. Then why would he be hanging it up to dry? And where was his wet towel? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to Bugs to hang up his towel and to hide Garth’s? That way, if anyone came by, Bugs would be able to say, “Hey, that’s my towel hanging up. Garth never gave me a towel.”
And why did this story involve a dinosaur-hunting license when the mystery was about a towel. Regardless of whose towel that was hanging up, Bugs had to admit that bit about the license was bullshit, so why was that even included?
