Happy-Go-Lucky

by David Sedaris

Seek approval from the one person you desperately want it from, and you’re guaranteed not to get it.

When two people approached each other on the sidewalk now, they would hug opposite edges, like enemies. Our eyes didn’t even meet anymore.

Normally in New York one out of every two hundred people you pass is crazy. Now it felt more like one out of every two.

I hated the clichés that came with the pandemic, hated hearing the new normal. Oh, and heroes. At first the word was used for health-care professionals. Then for essential workers. Then we were all heroes.

“You know who I hate?” I said to Amy over water buffalo Swedish meatballs that night. “Everyone.”

As the sidewalks became crowded, I thought, Oh no. Now I hate people even more than I did during the lockdown!

“I guess I don’t think that people who read Bibles on planes are all that smart.”