Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

standing in front of a woman who was seated at the bar, waiting on friends, and said to her, “Excuse
me,” as I reached over and dunked a tortilla chip in salsa. I then put it in my mouth and was chewing
away when she said, “Hey, you got tomato stains on my pants.”
I looked down and watched as she stabbed at the red spots with a wet napkin. She was superangry,
like this was the last straw. Her friends weren’t showing up, the place was too crowded, and
now some idiot had spilled salsa on her new tan slacks.
“Oh, gosh,” I said. “I’m terribly sorry about your pants.” With the letter p, a shard of tortilla chip
flew from my mouth right into the corner of her eye. I couldn’t believe it.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she said. “Now you spit on me!”
She wanted me dead, and it only got worse when her friends showed up. I caught her pointing at
me, the creep who ruined her outfit and then spat on her.
November 5, 1991
New York
I talked to Mom this afternoon, called her from Alba’s phone. She’s lost six pounds this week. The
chemo and radiation make her nauseated and she recently finished a meal after going five days
without one. She checks her comb for hairs that have fallen out but so far hasn’t found any. I’d
expected her to be down and depressed, but she was full of good hospital stories.
November 9, 1991
New York
It costs 10 cents to enter the children’s zoo in Central Park so I bought a ticket and saw a litter of
albino mice gathered around their mother. There were twenty-two of them, newborn and hairless,
pink like pencil erasers. Later I walked to the library and came away with the new Ronnie Milsap
biography. “Your mother’s twin,” I said to Hugh when I got home, though of course she looks nothing
like him. Ronnie Milsap is blind. His grandfather’s name was Homer Frisbee.
Our neighbor Helen came to the door this morning holding a takeout carton filled with chicken. Hugh
was written on top of it in big letters. The other day she brought him a pound of sausage. The day
before that it was a turkey meat loaf and a gallon of milk. Hugh gave her a dozen roses, but she
returned them, saying she’s allergic. It seems important that no one ever repays her, that the other
person is always in her debt. Last week she accepted a few flashlight batteries but that was a first.
“What do you say?” she growled after handing me the chicken this morning. “You say, ‘Thank you,
Helen.’”
She’s something else, this woman.
I worked for Alba, who was sick, throwing up all day. At a party last night she had eleven Bellinis,