Theft by Finding: Diaries: Volume One

by David Sedaris

October 31, 2001 Cincinnati, Ohio On CNN I watched a discussion about post-9/11 America. One of the panelists was the editor of Good Housekeeping, who reflected our new seriousness by placing the Stars and Stripes atop the traditional gingerbread house gracing the December cover. This is the sort of bullshit CNN is becoming famous for. I looked at this woman, thinking, Just … get the fuck off my TV. All Things Considered featured a report on a Kentucky man who was recently recognized as a hermit by the Catholic Church. The segment made it sound as if being a hermit were an occupation, like being an accountant or an engineer. “Tell me,” Linda Wertheimer said to a woman connected with the Kentucky archdiocese, “do you have any guidelines for hermits? Do your hermits live in proximity to other hermits?” The woman said that many of her hermits held part-time jobs as weavers, which, again, sounds so ancient. “Do you think this is on the rise?” Linda Wertheimer asked. “Being a hermit?” “Oh, definitely,” the woman said. “Especially now.”