Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

March 23, 1989
Chicago
The president of the NRA was on the radio today, speaking before the Commonwealth Club of
California. I was working at Linda’s, refinishing her banister, and when she came in, we listened
together. The guy started defending the sale of assault rifles. It’s not the guns that are the problem, he
said, but the birds who use them. “These birds who are psychos and should be locked up in the
nuthouse. These birds who break into houses and try to rape people.”
The guy was very folksy. “Just like my dad,” Linda said. “That could be him on the radio!”
Her father is a farmer and she grew up with guns. As a child she shot a robin. Shocked at what
she’d done, she tried to set it back in the tree, thinking it might spring to life once it was returned to its
rightful place.
The head of the NRA kept using the term birds. He said that sportsmen across the country enjoy the
responsible use of assault rifles and that a few sicko nut birds shouldn’t ruin it for the rest of us. He
wasn’t particularly articulate, but he believed in his cause and didn’t evade questions the way so
many speakers before the Commonwealth Club do.
March 26, 1989
Chicago
Walking to the L, I passed two men on Leland, both of them fully grown. One of them asked for a
cigarette and the other, not hearing my answer, grabbed my arm. “I said we want a cigarette!” he
shouted.
You can’t go around grabbing people like that. I’m sick of how trashy it is here. It’s filthy and
depressing and every day it gets worse due to the warm weather. Living in Uptown, I get the idea that
people are basically stupid, cruel, and violent.
The lease runs out at the end of April, and I think I’m ready to move.
In other news, I heard that a man’s waist should be twice as thick as his neck.
March 31, 1989
Chicago
The blind man was at the IHOP tonight, eating dinner with a sighted companion who brought up a
friend of his who had hoped to open a combination café/theater in the Loop and offer light meals and
plays during the lunch hour. “Of course, you’d have your soup of the day and your salads and so on,”
he said. “I’m talking sandwiches and so forth.”
The blind man nodded.
“But it turned out he didn’t go through with it,” the sighted man said. Apparently the friend didn’t
have enough money. “So I said to him, ‘Well, money’s not everything.’ Then he said, ‘Maybe not, but
it’s about ten thousand goddamn miles ahead of whatever it is that comes in second.’” He sighed, then