Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

The older woman lit a cigarette and said that in her opinion, Mike was being irresponsible.
The pregnant woman sighed. “I’m just hoping he gets his act together, maybe after the play is
finished.”
Yesterday on the radio I heard a young woman address a few of the hardships she’s faced since her
husband walked out on her and her two young children. Because he disappeared, she’s still married
and thus ineligible for welfare in the state of Virginia. She’s college educated, but the children are
young, and she can’t leave them alone. When she tries to get aid, the people at Social Services tell her
that she’s pretty, which means what, exactly? That she could become a prostitute, or find a wealthy
boyfriend? She said that her five-year-old got sick, and that when he sat on his potty seat, his
intestines came out.
I dropped my screwdriver when I heard that.
April 29, 1988
Chicago
At the library I got a biography of Dorothy Parker, and on the L, I dipped into the middle of it,
where an old man reaches under the table for a lit cigarette. As he bends, his arthritic knees pop, and
Parker stretches out her hands, saying, “Ahhhh, there’s nothing I love more than a good crackling
fire.”
May 8, 1988
Chicago
They hired a waiter at the IHOP, a guy named Jace. He was OK at first, but now he brings in a
portable TV and sits at the worktable smoking cigarettes and watching it. He tells customers it might
be a twenty-minute wait before he can take their order, and one after another they leave. Last night
there were three occupied tables. It was me, a couple, and a heavy man who waited for fifteen
minutes before getting up to complain. Later at the cash register, Jace apologized for taking so long.
“Sorry,” he said. “But I was watching a bullfight.”
A bullfight?
May 29, 1988
Chicago
I got so sick of being called Pee-wee that I bought a new bike with the money I earned painting for
Gene. It’s like the one I had in Raleigh, a Frankenstein bike, made of different bits and pieces. The
brakes are new, and the pedals. It’s been painted umpteen times and there’s a Playboy insignia on it.
June 7, 1988