Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

I bought nothing at the flea market today but stopped to admire a human skull from the sixth century.
It’s on a stand, the head of a child, crazed with tiny lines, and exquisite. The woman selling it gave me
the price, which amounted to $6,000. It seemed extravagant, but then, how do you value a skull? The
way it is, I could buy either a decent used car or some kid’s head. It’s twice the cost of Hugh’s
computer and half the price of a hysterectomy.
September 28, 1998
Paris
Polish Anna and I spoke after class today. She works as an au pair and told me that her mistress is
currently in the hospital. The woman is six months pregnant and just learned that the fetus’s legs are
only two inches long. “That means,” Anna said, “that he will have to be pushed always in a rolling
chair, and this is very difficult here in Paris.”
Based on this news, the woman has decided to terminate her pregnancy. This is interesting, as I
don’t think you could abort that late in the United States. I’m sure there are always extenuating
circumstances, but I don’t think that this—tiny legs—would be an acceptable reason. Would it?
September 29, 1998
Paris
This was the last class before our week-long break, and the teacher baked a cake and organized a
little party. Anna brought bread and cheese, the German made a potato salad, and the Japanese girl
brought in seaweed crackers. A lot of people didn’t show up, and because there were so few of us,
we got to sit around and ask the teacher personal questions. It was fun watching her talk with her
mouth full. After she finished, she pulled out her cigarettes and offered them to everyone. I lit one of
my own and she told me, using a word I’d learn from Manuela, that menthol cigarettes are tacky. She
talked about American hypocrisy and puritanism and asked why my people were so caught up in our
president’s sex life. The others got involved and said, essentially, “Yeah, you, what’s your problem?”
October 2, 1998
Paris
This morning while cutting cheese Hugh sliced off the tip of his finger. That sounds like a sentence
I’d write for class, but it’s true. He worried he was going to pass out; my big fear was trying to phone
someone for help. There’s a small, Arab-owned market a few doors from our apartment building, so
while he wrapped his hand in a rag, I ran down the street to buy Band-Aids, remembering along the
way that I had no idea what the word is. I’d tried to buy some at a pharmacy last year in Normandy,
but my French was so bad I couldn’t even describe them. In the end I drew a picture and the woman
looked at it, responding with what I guessed was “This is a drugstore. We have no surfboards here.”
It really was a bad picture. My next attempt was even worse and resembled a flying carpet. In the