Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

September 19, 1986
Chicago
Last week a girl in our fiction workshop told the teacher, Jim, that she didn’t know what she
wanted to write exactly. She said she was interested in death, so today she turned in a poem about
Vietnam called “The Walking Wounded.” “I see silhouettes. / Green silhouettes,” it began.
Every line had a period at the end. Jim called her poem a list, and she announced that she would
not be coming back. She wore leather straps around her wrists.
After class I came home and spent an hour and a half taking my typewriter apart. Something was
jammed inside. There are countless tiny screws in there, and it’s amazing to me that I fixed it. I feel so
proud of myself.
September 25, 1986
Chicago
Yesterday Amy took a cab home from her improv class. She sat in the back wearing sunglasses,
and the driver tried to flirt with her, saying, “You’ve got beautiful eyes.”
Later she went to the Laundromat, where she saw a man carefully folding his wet clothes and
putting them in the dryer.
September 28, 1986
Chicago
Paul was here until this afternoon. During his visit we went around town on bikes and buses and
the L. We took a few cabs, but mainly we walked. Last night he had a meatball sub and today he had a
hot roast beef sandwich. He ate a lot of gravy on this trip. Before leaving he told me this joke:
Q. How did they know Christa McAuliffe had dandruff?
A. They found her Head & Shoulders on the beach.
October 2, 1986
Chicago
Dad called at six a.m. It was still dark outside, so I assumed someone had died. Why else would
he call me?
It seemed he was on his way from British Columbia to Raleigh and was at O’Hare, laid over
between flights. In Canada he’d fished for steelhead trout. He caught five big ones in ten days, but his