Thanks for letting me know. It didn't look much like a manuscript -- wrong size for standard 8½x11 paper, even rolled up. But I guess it might have been packed in a cardboard tube, or printed on some other size paper, and of course I might have misjudged the size.

I suppose that giving a story to back someone whose stories have made a big difference to you isn't entirely silly, as long as it's "a gift of a story" rather than "please fix this for me", "please be my co-author", or "please help me get this published". It was still a very weird presentation.