DAVID SEDARIS

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LAUGH, KOOKABURRA from Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls I’ve been to Australia twice so far, but according to my father I’ve never actually seen it. He made this observation at the home of my cousin Joan, who he and I visited just before Christmas last year, and it came on the heels of an equally aggressive comment. “Well,” he said, “David’s a better reader than he is a writer.” This from someone who hasn’t opened a book since “Dave Stockton’s Putt to Win,” in 1996. He’s never been to Australia, either. Never even come close.“No matter,” he told me. “In order to see the country, you have to see the countryside, and you’ve only been to Sydney.”
“And Melbourne. And Brisbane,” I said. “And I have too gone into the country.” “Like hell you have.” “All right,” I said. “Let’s get Hugh on the phone. He’ll tell you. He’ll even send you pictures.” Joan and her family live in Binghamton, New York. They don’t see my father and me that often, so it was pretty lousy to sit at their table, he and I bickering like an old married couple. Ashamed by the bad impression we were making, I dropped the countryside business, and as my dad moved on to other people’s shortcomings I thought back to the previous summer, and my twenty-three-hour flight from London to Sydney. I was in Australia on business, and because someone else was paying for the ticket, and it would be possible to stop in Japan on the way home, Hugh joined me. This is not to put Australia down, but he’d already gone once before. Then, too, spend that much time on a plane and you’re entitled to a whole new world when you step off at the other end—the planet Mercury, say, or, at the very least, Mexico City. For an American, though, Australia seems pretty familiar: same wide streets, same office towers. I hate to admit it, but my dad was right about the 13
Page 1: What About Understanding Owls? a co
Page 7 and 8: What About Understanding Owls? a co
Page 9: Dedicated to my A dva nc e d P ro b
Page 15 and 16: countryside. Hugh and I didn’t se
Page 17 and 18: friends. “It’s nothing to be pr
Page 19 and 20: called Daylesford, which looked, wh
Page 21 and 22: “Is that normal in Australia?”
Page 23 and 24: his third helping, I got used to th
Page 25 and 26: was the innocence of it. If I had c
Page 27 and 28: in on my upper thigh. Whap, whap, w
Page 30 and 31: - UNDERSTANDING OWLS from Let’s E
Page 33 and 34: ceiling, and if she wanted turkey v
Page 35 and 36: the old ones are. The store was ope
Page 37 and 38: owls, each mounted to a stump and s
Page 39 and 40: forearm, complete with little hairs
Page 41 and 42: dry and thin, like leather on an ol
Page 43 and 44: wasn’t heavy—in fact, it was su
Page 46 and 47: - TRICKED from Dress Your Family in
Page 48 and 49: not believe in television, my fathe
Page 50 and 51: intelligent and considerably more f
Page 52 and 53: always had, but the son and daughte
Page 54 and 55: my candy keep out!
Page 56 and 57: doorknob, I tore off the wrappers a
Page 58 and 59: and of how alone and out of place t
Page 60: colophon This book was created by A

DAVID SEDARIS

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