Themes and Variations

by David Sedaris

What’s the worst thing you can hear while you’re blowing Willie Nelson? “I’m not really Willie Nelson.”

It’s late at night, and a man is getting ready to go to bed, when he hears a knock on his door. He opens it and looks down to see a snail. “Yes,” it says, “I’d like to talk to you about buying some magazine subscriptions.” Beside himself with rage, the man rears back, kicks the snail as hard as he can, and storms off to bed. Two years later, there comes another knock. The man answers, and again he finds the snail, who looks up at him and says, “What the fuck was that all about?”

“And there’s no point in me doing anything if I can’t write about it,” I continued. “It would be like . . . walking ten miles without my Fitbit on—a complete waste. I mean, I do do things I don’t write about: I use the bathroom, I have sex, but I try to be quick about it.”