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My wife thinks I'm going deaf, but I think it's just that I have so many incredible ideas bouncing around in my head - and I'm quite sure one of them is going to make me incredibly famous, wealthy beyond all imagination and beloved by the masses - that I'm constantly exploring my own brain.

Some people also call it spacing out.

But all it takes to bring me back to reality is a simple question like: "Do you know what is the most common item stolen from the Navajo reservation?"

"Turquois?"

"Nope.

"Pottery?"

"Nope.

"Navajo rugs?"

We were on Day Two of our "Pueblo Heritage: The Anasazi, Hopi, Navajo and Chaco Canyon" Road Scholars tour. Our guide, Stewart, adjusted the microphone on his headset and turned up the volume on the dashboard of the tour van. "Sheep dung," he said.

I was thinking maybe people in Northern Arizona should go to thievery school or at least take a night (burglary) class. But Stewart told us we would soon understand.

That's when we pulled into the Hopi Cultural Center on Second Mesa for a pottery demonstration from esteemed Hopi artist, Dorothy Ami. She made a small perfectly round pot as she talked, using the traditional coil method - adding coils of clay to the base pot and working it into shape by hand, no potter's wheel.

"I was a teacher, and I wasn't sure I wanted to make pots for a living. Then I began watching my cousin, Mark Tahbo, and he taught me many things. After several years we went to a show and as people bought pots, I just kept shoving the money into my pockets. When the show was over, I counted the money. There was $50,000. I decided then I did want to be a potter!"

Fifty grand! All the other great ideas swimming around in my brain fluids disappeared. Pots by Ernie. Yes!

"It takes nine days for clay preparation," Dorothy continued. "Much of the clay I find is holding up a big rock, so I have to remove it carefully."

Oops, that was going to be a problem. I just have to look at large rocks and they want to fall on my head.

Dorothy passed around samples of the clays she uses and the shaping tools, which were shards of other pots. And then she held up her brush. "I use my own hair as the brush," she told us, as she carefully painted traditional designs on one of her nearly-finished pots.

Another thing that wouldn't work well for me. I'd be out of hair after just a few weeks. Plus, I can't even paint the living room without making a big old splattering mess. Fine lines might not be my forte.

"You may notice that the coloration on the finished pot is not even all around."

Wow. Uneven I can do. I'm back.

"We fire our pots outdoors at temperatures of 1,400-1,600 degrees. It's often windy, so the pot's finish comes out uneven. That's how you can tell a traditional Hopi pot. We use dried sheep dung for fuel because it's dense and burns very hot. I get all my sheep dung from our neighbors, the Navajo."

I wasn't sure what the 'neighbors' were getting in return, but whatever it was it must have been seen as a good trade on their part.

"I pay cash," Dorothy told us. "They bring a truckload and I check it to make sure it's not too salty. I only pay for the best s**t!"

I watched as my entire pot-making idea for fame and fortune came crashing down. Not only would the condo association frown on my building a fire in the common area, but even if I could find someone with a truckload of dried sheep dung in Santa Barbara, I could think of only way way to tell if it was too salty.

We all thanked Dorothy for her demonstration, then my wife bought one of her beautiful, signed pots at the gift store.

Back in the van on the way to our next adventure, Stewart said: "Even though we are driving east, all of this land is actually gradually moving west, at the same speed as fingernails grow."

My brain exploded.

- Ernie Witham

Award-winning humorist Ernie Witham has published three books including his latest, Where are Pat and Ernie Now? He writes a syndicated humor column, "Ernie's World," for the Montecito Journal that is syndicated through Senior Wire Service. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Santa Barbara News-Press, various magazines and more than two dozen anthologies. He serves on the faculty of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, where he has taught humor for more than 10 years.