What to get a college grad you've never met

After going to church today with a great friend, I had a college graduation party to go to today. This party was for someone that I know in the online world, but had not actually met in the real world. Being that I had never met her in the real world, I wanted to leave a good impression on her and her family. Some may look at a situation like this as daunting, but I didn't think much about it; after all, what could go wrong?

The party was being held at her parent's house, which was in a small town about 40 minutes outside St. Louis on the IL side. I hadn't had a chance to pick up a congratulations card for her, but I figured I'd be able to pick one up in town, stuff some money in it, and give it to her like I had it all planned out. When I came upon the town, I think I realized then that I was in trouble. The only thing that looked like it may even have a card to sell was a BP station. I waled in and I asked "Do you have any cards?" The woman working looked at me with a bit of a stunned look and said that they should and was surprised that I didn't see them. She said they had some with the word Aviator on them...as she was talking about playing cards. Desperate, I told her I was looking for a congratulations card (or a birthday card at this point, I was getting desperate). She said that they didn't have anything like that. I looked around and tried to come up with a suitable substitute, which I think I did; I got her a road atlas.

I had several road atlases to choose from, but I decided to get her the Illinois big highway map. Up in the Lake Michigan portion of the map, I wrote the personalized message of "Congrats on your graduation. May your future take you interesting places" (upon later reflection, I should have stated included the word 'to' in front of the word interesting). All in all, I thought it was a pretty clever solution to a lack of a card problem. She was also pretty excited because she said she needed a new map. I should work for Hallmark.