Themes and Variations

by David Sedaris

It’s not like the clues weren’t there. How many times have I knocked on a woman’s door after dark, and had her answer wearing a sweatshirt that doesn’t seem to go with the rest of her outfit, or had her answer with her arms crossed over her chest. I thought that was sign language for Couldn’t you have told me you were coming? Now I see that it actually meant, If you think I’m putting my bra back on for this bullshit, you are so sorely mistaken.

I came across a Subway, but I can’t bear the smell of those places. “It’s like a loaf of bread farted,” Jon Stewart once observed.