Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

by 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.

Today the teacher called me a sadist. I tried to say that was like the pot calling the kettle black but came out with something closer to “That is like a pan saying to a dark pan, ‘You are a pan.’”

Yesterday the teacher held up my essay on social change during the 1960s and pronounced it “a remarkable document.” I made plenty of grammatical errors but gained points on the structure. Today I turned in my paper on social customs. In it I wrote that on the eve of an American man’s wedding, it is customary for his parents to cut off two of his fingers and bury them near the parking lot. The groom has eight hours in which to find them, and if he does, it means that the marriage will last.

Harry Rowohlt, the fellow who translated my book into German and is reading with me on my tour, told me that when someone on the bus or at a nearby table in a restaurant talks on a cell phone, he likes to lean over and shout, “Come back to bed, I’m freezing.”

Every time we go out to dinner I find something in my food. On Monday night it was a bit of tinfoil and today it was a rubber band. As long as it’s not glass or a thumbtack I don’t really care. I’m just wondering what it might be tomorrow.

Today I saw a one-armed dwarf carrying a skateboard. It’s been ninety days since I’ve had a drink.