Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

ut luckily didn’t reach the tabletop. The people we picked up the furniture from in Jericho, an older
couple, had a spotless house. What’s odd is that they had brass knockers on all of their inside doors—
to the bathrooms and bedrooms, the closets, everything. “Be careful,” they kept saying. “Watch the
corner! Watch the stairs!”
The couple in Park Slope were in their late thirties and had a baby. They smiled a lot, were nice.
Brooklyn is covered in graffiti. Absolutely covered.
March 19, 1992
New York
Hugh and I went to Westport, Connecticut, and picked up two tuxedo cats that used to belong to the
actress Sandy Dennis, who recently died of ovarian cancer. On the train back to New York, two black
teenagers were discovered hiding in the bathroom. They’d snuck on without paying and were shocked
when the conductor asked them to hand over their Walkmans, saying, “Those should about cover the
price of the tickets.”
“You don’t understand,” one of the kids said. “These aren’t our Walkmans.” He said that they
belonged to friends and that they went to a really tough school where every day someone got shot and
killed.
“That’s not my problem,” the conductor said.
“But…,” the kid said. “But…”
The conductor said they’d have to get off at the next stop, 125th Street.
The other kid spoke up then, saying, “But we want to get off at Grand Central.”
“Look,” the conductor said, “you can either get off at One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street or go
to jail.”
To this, the first kid said, “Which one?”
March 22, 1992
New York
Patrick stayed up late last night and watched a show about termites, which don’t eat wood but
apparently just store it in their cheeks or whatnot. Then they bring it back to the mound, where they
use it to mulch mushrooms. Can this be true? I’m so gullible sometimes.
March 23, 1992
New York
According to the book I’m reading, Judy Garland was once singing “Over the Rainbow” at the
Greek Theatre in Los Angeles when a moth flew into her open mouth. She couldn’t spit it out in the
middle of the song, so she just parked it in her cheek until she had finished. Again, can that be true?