Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

by David Sedaris

I were thirteen and I’d been caught graffitiing a mailbox, my parents would have thanked the man and shaken his hand. “We’ll take it from here,” they’d have assured him. Then, in full view of the crowd, they would have beaten me—not a couple of light stage slaps but the real thing, with loosened teeth and muffled pleas for mercy.

I’m sure my father said plenty of normal things to me when I was growing up,