Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

by David Sedaris

Today T.W. and I worked alone, nailing siding onto the Pratts’ house. I made mistakes, and he was patient until I took a measurement and marked the tape instead of the board. He asked then if I thought I’d ever amount to anything. His tone suggested that if I did think I’d amount to anything, I was fooling myself. T.W. comments on every woman he sees, with no exceptions. We ate lunch together at the Golden Skillet. A waitress was bending over to clear a table, and he smacked his lips and commented loudly on what he’d rather be eating. Spook girls have good legs, he says. “There’s a pretty little spook girl works over to the nigger store. I’d like to take her home to my wife and say, ‘Here you go. Treat her like a sister.’ Get me some pigger nussy, some soul hole.” “Monkey and the baboon playing in the grass. Monkey sticks his fingers up the baboon’s ass.” “It was easier to get pussy back when girls didn’t have no cars and had to depend on men for rides.” “Slippery as a puppy’s peter.” “Get me a granny raisin cake. It’s got a pitcher of an old granny on the cover with her hair all up in a bun. If they don’t got none, buy me a male Hershey bar—you know, the kind with the nuts.” To a fifteen-year-old girl he called out, “C’mere so I can smell of it.” At the end of the day he decided that I’m too shy with women.