Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

April 18, 1991
New York
Alba spent the better part of the day crying. I asked what was wrong and she said, “Everything.” I
felt bad for her.
April 21, 1991
New York
I worked with David Donner again today, which is Sunday. The doormen were on strike, so they
brooded outside the building as opposed to inside the building. In their place are private security
guards who issued David and me passes we need in order to exit and reenter.
I went out at one to buy lunch and was in the lobby when one of the striking doormen stepped in
and called me buster, as in “You’re going to have to clean up those footprints, buster.” He pointed to
something I could barely see.
So I said, “All right, can you give me something to clean them with?”
He told me to go upstairs and get something. “Would you make a mess like that in your own
home?” he asked. And again, I could barely see what he was talking about. And wasn’t he supposed
to be outside on strike?
“I’m a very clean person,” I told him.
He said, “I’ll have you thrown out and make sure you never come back. I’ll take that goddamn card
of yours and tear it to pieces, you hear me, buster?”
People in the lobby turned to see what the fuss was.
“Goddamn you, you’re out of here,” the doorman said.
I went upstairs and returned with a damp rag. Then I got on my hands and knees and cleaned my
faint footprints off the carpet. Boy, my blood was boiling. It was pouring when I went out for lunch.
On my way back in, the security guard asked to see my pass, which was complete bullshit as five
minutes earlier he’d seen me crawl in front of him on my hands and knees. So I had lunch in one hand,
an umbrella in the other, and as I searched in my pocket for my pass, I get yelled at for dripping water
onto the carpet. I don’t know where to begin with these assholes, I really don’t.
April 25, 1991
New York
Today we moved the office from the Chelsea Hotel to Alba’s house on Bleecker Street—four full
floors and two basements. She hired movers, two nice Colombians who have a company called
Going. I don’t think Alba understands the thoughts of people who are working. If you’ve carried a big
TV up four flights of stairs, you don’t want a lot of hemming and hawing about where it goes—you
just want to set it down. At one point I suggested that if she was going from the first to the third floor,
it wouldn’t hurt her to carry a little something up, a magazine, maybe, or a coffee cup.
She told me that she was not a lazy person, and then she went up empty-handed. Later she had a fit