Theft by Finding - David Sedaris

the Acropolis, the Herod Atticus Theater built in the second century A.D.!!!”
Because he so rarely writes, I’d never known he was the type to use exclamation marks.
September 21, 1999
Paris
To celebrate my six months without a drink, we went with Ronnie to Le Parc aux Cerfs. A Scottish
woman sat at the next table and in time joined our conversation. She was, we learned, a psychologist,
in town for some sort of training session. I wouldn’t describe her as drunk, but she seemed at least
tipsy and said a lot of strange things. She asked Hugh, for instance, if I was wonderful to love, which
isn’t a question you’d expect from a stranger, or from anyone, really.
September 24, 1999
Paris
Ronnie was tired so after dropping her at the apartment to take a nap, I walked to La Maison du
Chocolat to buy a gift for the Gs. The shop wasn’t crowded and the saleswomen acted as though they
remembered me. Afterward, proud of the day’s French and just generally pleased with myself, I
crossed the street to the Métro station and experienced one of those moments of extreme joy, the kind
that result from something small and make you grateful that you never committed suicide. And it was
just then that a gnat flew into my eye, a big one. I tried looking into the window of a parked car,
hoping I could spot it, but the reflection wasn’t strong enough. Near me, two teenage girls stood on the
sidewalk selling cigarette lighters to raise money for a class trip. They doubled as can openers, but
still, lighters! You’d never find kids doing that in America. Instead, they’d have to sell things like
candy bars.
I told one of the girls I had something in my eye and she opened her purse and held up a small hand
mirror. I bunched up my sleeve and eventually caught the gnat on the wet, wadded-up tip of it. It was
so sweet of her to hold up the mirror. I bought a lighter for much more than its asking price, and she
told me I was très gentil.
October 3, 1999
Paris
A year ago I would have begged Hugh to accompany me to the hardware store, but now I go on my
own. On the first of yesterday’s two trips I said to the clerk, in French, “Hello. Sometimes my clothes
are wrinkled. I bought a machine anti-wrinkle, and now I search a table. Have you such a table?”
The fellow said, “An ironing board?”
“Exactly!”
A few hours later I returned. “Hello. Sometimes I drink tea in a hotel. I now search the little thing,
a stick to make boiling water.” He taught me the word for “heating element,” but I’ve since forgotten