Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

wishes I were her son instead of him.
It doesn’t get to him because it’s so ridiculous. In truth, she’d much rather hang out with Hugh than
with me. Joan was here last month for a few days and spent her mornings drinking tea and reading the
international section of the Times. It’s the last part I’m likely to turn to, but having lived in Africa and
the Middle East, the Hamricks love nothing more than to discuss foreign policy. They’re forever
mentioning some crisis in Karachi or Ghana, and they know the first and last names of countless
ambassadors and attachés. They’re so far removed from my own family.
November 29, 1996
New York
I went to Amy’s apartment for Thanksgiving and left for home, drunk and stoned, at three a.m. She
had a good-size crowd, and charged her guests $5 for the chance to wear a Pilgrim hat and have their
picture taken with her rabbit, Tattle Tail. Eight people took her up on it, but in the end, not one of them
paid. Lately I’m trying to be a better listener. This involves asking questions such as “Tell me, Louis,
do you have a lot of candles in your house?”
Louis works with Amy at Marion’s and his thing is to tell huge lies and then allow himself to be
interrogated. Last night he said he was the world’s first rapper.
“Really, the first?”
“Yes,” he said. “And it was hard because no one believed that it would catch on and grow into this
big sensation.”
“Did people make fun of you?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, everyone.”
“And did that hurt?”
“It hurt a lot. An awful lot.”
An old neighbor of Lisa’s was recently caught having sex with his Labrador retriever, and when I
told Louis about it, he asked if the dog could get pregnant.
“Are you serious?” I said. “How old are you?” That’s one of those things you think about when
you’re a child, the possibility of a half boy/half pony. If it were possible to crossbreed like that, the
world would be full of talking goats and sheep who could shear their own wool.
November 30, 1996
New York
Helen called offering me some gravy. I told her our refrigerator was full and she launched into her
suspicion that our seventy-five-year-old neighbor is creeping into her apartment while she’s asleep. It
makes no sense, but she’s convinced that something is going on. She then recounted her recent fights
with the people at the corner grocery and the construction crew renovating the apartment upstairs
from her. After that, she talked about her nephew and the reasons she didn’t go to her daughter’s house
for Thanksgiving. Her monologue went on for twenty minutes and ended with “So if you don’t want
my gravy, go fuck yourself.”