CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- It's hard to describe the thrill when my 13-year-old daughter discovered one of my favorites and made it her own. Such was the case when Celeste started reading David Sedaris, whose writing I've adored ever since my husband gave me a copy of "The Santaland Diaries" back when we were first dating.

The same book won over Celeste.

It was as though Hallmark crafted the scene: mother and daughter bent over an open book, smiling while sharing that holiday classic about Dinah, the Christmas Whore. The one who gave a whole different meaning to "Ho, ho, ho."

When we learned Sedaris would be performing in Charleston, we quickly ordered our tickets. And when a friend who ushers for the Clay Center told us Sedaris would be signing books before and after the show, we began weeding through our collection to decide which titles to take.

I assumed Celeste would take "Santaland," but she had a different idea.

An idea so different it's become part of his act.

Instead of taking a book for Sedaris to sign, Celeste decided to take a T-shirt she got on vacation, a souvenir from when the two of us did the Trainer for a Day program at Gulf World in Panama City, Fla.

As part of the package, we got to be in the pool with some dolphins while the trainers taught them new tricks. The dolphin we were matched with, Astro, turned out to not only be deaf, but was also afflicted with a bad case of scoliosis.

In spite of Astro's issues, he was being taught how to paint. The trainer would put the brush in Astro's mouth, then give a hand signal that meant he should dip his brush in the paint and then swipe it across the shirt.

Astro was good at loading paint on the brush, but as soon as he did, he'd playfully dive to the bottom. It took a number of failed attempts before he found his artistic muse and began slapping the shirt with a few different colors.

Unfortunately, along with being deaf and scoliotic, Astro must've been color blind, too. The finished product was too ugly to wear, yet too nice a memento to discard. It remained in a drawer until we heard Sedaris was coming to town.

And Celeste decided she wanted to be the only person on earth with a shirt that had been painted by a scoliotic dolphin and signed by David Sedaris.

As we slowly made our way through the long line of fans at the book signing before the performance, Celeste nearly backed out, worried Sedaris might refuse to sign anything but a book.

Her friend Emillia Samosky went first. Sedaris asked her age and made small talk for a bit, then reached into a bag of goodies he reserves for teenagers who come to his shows. She left with a tiny bottle of shampoo he'd taken from the Four Seasons Hotel.

And then it was Celeste's turn. For a moment I worried she'd bolt, but he looked intrigued by what she was placing before him. As she explained the strange shirt, he first raised one eyebrow, then both.

Out came his little green notebook, where he jotted, "dolphin with scoliosis."

After signing the shirt, he rewarded Celeste with shower gel, also from the Four Seasons, and we went in search of our seats.

Toward the end of his performance that night -- a show so funny my jaws ached from laughing so hard -- he told about the strange shirt he'd been asked to sign earlier that evening. Seems Sedaris has had a long-held ambition to be paid to visit every state, and West Virginia had been the only state that was left on his list. But now that he's been to West Virginia and learned the people here care about scoliotic dolphins, he said he'd come back here for free.

Reach Karin Fuller via email at karinful...@gmail.com.