David Sedaris: You don't know my sister!

On his profession

It helps to surround yourself with people who do stuff - fucked up stuff.

My oldest sister Lisa came to visit me in France this summer, and she did something that [he searches for adequate words] is like something an animal would do. I could not believe that she did this – especially in a picnic area! And the first thing out of her mouth was “you can never write about that”.

So it’s just gonna take me a couple of years to say [wheedling] “Aww c’mon, Lisa - that’s funny. Everyone I told it to laughed...”

On Scotland

Hotelwise, I’ve never had so many opportunities to stay in a place with deer heads.

On the fact-checker at the New Yorker

I went with my brother-in-law to buy strawberries – I mean to buy condoms. Because when I sign books in the US I give condoms to teenagers - you always want to have something to give to a teenager. So I was buying in bulk.

I’m in Winstonsdale, North Carolina, with my brother-in-law and all we have in our shopping cart is a huge box of condoms. Which made us look super-gay. So I said you’ve got to put something else in this cart, and he came back with a 5 pound box of strawberries. Which made us look even gayer. “After anal sex, we like strawberries!”

So the fact checker called and said the biggest box of strawberries in Costco is 4 pounds, not 5. I didn’t want to make mistakes, so I changed it.

 

On people who think his stories are made up

My oldest sister once said to me that every year 5,000 children are startled to death. The parent just says “boo!” and the child has a heart attack. Now I don’t care if that’s true or not, but I love the fact that she told this story to me. On Christmas day.

But somebody told me, “Your sister didn’t say that to you”. I said, “no, your sister didn’t say that to you. You don’t know my sister!”

I consider myself very lucky to have a sister who will talk about things like that. And do the thing that she did in the picnic area.

 

On people who tell him to write their stories

Last time I was in Scotland this guy told me a story, and he worked for social services and he told me a story.

A woman was bathing her baby in the sink, but somebody came to the door, and she thought “Hmmm, I can leave the baby for a minute.” [significant pause] She tripped over the laundry basket, fell down the stairs, broke her neck. And meanwhile the baby slipped under the bathwater and drowned.

So he told this story to his mother and his mother said [Scottish accent] “So who was at the door?”

And then I was signing books in the US and this guy came up and told me his girlfriend was once on the front seat of his car, and she had her legs up on the dashboard, and she got too relaxed. And she shit on the front seat of his car. She shit on the front seat of his car. And that’s delicious. “I don’t know how long you’ve been saving that up to tell me, but boy did I appreciate it!”

On something most people don't know

Now I don’t know how it works in Scotland, but in America, if you have a clothing store, someone is going to defecate in your dressing room. Now you can have a bathroom right nearby, and a big sign that says ‘Use our bathroom’ - someone’s still going to say, “can I try these jeans on?” And they are going to defecate in your dressing room. It happens in any store - anywhere there’s a cash register, people defecate. (In the United States.)

It’s one of those things most people don’t know… Now, if I’m trying clothes on in the dressing room and something hits the floor, I don’t even pick it up with my feet. I just leave it there.