“Well, that’s propofol for you,” Dr. Holmes would later say. “It’s what Michael Jackson was injecting himself with when he died.”
And who can blame him? I’d give anything to sleep so soundly, and to wake each morning on a cloud of such fuzzy love.
“I’m going to need for you to pass some gas,” said the woman putting papers into envelopes. She spoke as if she were a teacher, and I was a second-grade student. “Do you think you can do that for me?”
“For you, anything.” And as I did as I was instructed, I realized it was no different than playing a wind instrument. There were other musicians behind other curtains, and I swore I could hear them chiming in, the group of us forming God’s own horn section. I’m not sure how long I lay there, blissed-out and farting. Three minutes? Five? Ten? Then I was instructed to get dressed, and someone led me into a room with a newspaper and a Bible in it. There I was reunited with Lisa, who said joyfully, “Didn’t I tell you?”
“Oh, you did,” I sighed. “I just didn’t allow myself to believe it. The next time, we should have these done together. Wouldn’t that just be fantastic?”
I was looking at her, beaming, love radiating from my body like heat from a lightbulb, when Dr. Holmes entered and told me it had all gone beautifully. “Congratulations,” he said. “You have the colon of a twenty-five-year-old.”
I’ll fall for anything, apparently. “Really! A twenty-five-year-old!”
“Actually I’m just kidding,” he said. “All healthy colons look more or less alike.” He gave me some pictures of what the camera had captured, but I couldn’t make sense of them—not then, as I bobbed balloonlike off the walls of the tiny room, or later, at Lisa’s house, after the drug had worn off and I was myself again.
I was just getting ready to go for a walk when my father called.
“So?” he asked. “What’s your verdict? Was it as bad as you’d thought it would be?”
I wanted to thank him for all the years of pestering me, to concede that he’d had my best interests at heart, but instead, unable to stop myself, I said, “Dad, they found something. And Dad…Daddy…I have cancer.”
It’s horrible, I know, but I’d somehow been waiting all my life to say those words. During fits of self-pity I had practiced them like lines in a play, never thinking of the person I’d be delivering them to but only of myself, and of how tragic I would sound. The “Daddy” bit surprised me, though, so much so that tears sprang forth and clouded my vision. This made it all the harder to see Lisa, who was listening to me from the other end of the sofa and mouthing what could have been any number of things but was probably, emphatically, You will go to hell for this.
“The important thing is not to give in to defeat,” my father said. He sounded so strong, so completely his younger, omnipotent self, that I hated to tell him I was kidding. “You’ve got to fight,” he said. “I know that you’re scared, but I’m telling you, son, together we can lick this.”
Eventually I would set him straight, but until then, at least for another few seconds, I wanted to stay in this happy place. So loved and protected. So fulfilled.
Dog Days
Pepper, Spot, and Leopold
were sent by God, so I’ve been told,
in hopes we might all comprehend
that every dog is man’s best friend.
Hail hyperactive Myrtle,
owned by folks who are infertile.
Her owners boast as she runs wild,
“She’s not a spaniel, she’s our child!”
Hercules, a Pekingese,
was taken in and dipped for fleas.
Insecticide got in his eyes.
Now he’ll be blind until he dies.
Rags, the Shatwells’ Irish setter,
doubles as a paper shredder.
His lunch was bills and last year’s taxes,
followed by a dozen faxes.
Petunia May they say was struck
chasing down a garbage truck.
A former purebred Boston terrier,
her family’s wond’ring where to bury her.
snacks from Kitty’s litter box.
Then on command she gives her missus
lots of little doggy kisses.
The Deavers’ errant pit bull, Cass,
bit the postman on the ass.
Her lower teeth destroyed his sphincter.
Now his walk’s a bit distincter.
Bitches loved the pug Orestes
till the vet snipped off his testes.
Left with only anal glands,
he’s now reduced to shaking hands.
Dachshund Skip from Winnipeg
loves to hump his master’s leg.
Every time he gets it up, he
stains Bill’s calves with unborn puppy.
A naughty Saint Bernard named Don
finds Polly’s Kotex in the john.
He holds the blood steak in his jaws
and mourns her coming menopause.
A summer day and shar-pei Boris
sits inside a parked Ford Taurus.
He yaps until his throat is sore,
then pants awhile and yaps some more.
An average day and poor Raquel’s
being shot with cancer cells.
Among her friends she likes to crab
that she’s a pointer, not a Lab.
Each night old Bowser licks his balls,
then falls asleep till nature calls.
He poops a stool, then, though it’s heinous,
bends back down and licks his anus.
About the Author
David Sedaris is the author of the books Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. He lives in England.
davidsedarisbooks.com
Download the David’s Diary app.
Books by David Sedaris
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Me Talk Pretty One Day
Holidays on Ice
Naked
Barrel Fever
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Author’s Note
Dentists Without Borders
Attaboy
Think Differenter
Memory Laps
A Friend in the Ghetto
Loggerheads
If I Ruled the World
Easy, Tiger
Laugh, Kookaburra
Standing Still
Just a Quick E-mail
A Guy Walks into a Bar Car
Author, Author
Obama!!!!!
Standing By
Understanding Understanding Owls
#2 to Go
Health-Care Freedoms and Why I Want My Country Back
Now Hiring Friendly People
Rubbish
Day In, Day Out
Mind the Gap
A Cold Case
The Happy Place
Dog Days
About the Author
Books by David Sedaris
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by David Sedaris
Cover design and illustration by Emily Burns
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
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First ebook edition: April 2013
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Acknowledgment is made to the following, in which the stories in this collection first appeared, some differently titled or in slightly different form: The New Yorker: “Laugh, Kookaburra,” “Dentists Without Borders,” “A Guy Walks into a Bar Car,” “Author, Author,” “Memory Laps,” “Easy, Tiger,” “A Cold Case,” “Loggerheads,” “Standing By,” “Understanding Understanding Owls”; The Guardian: “#2 to Go”; Times of London Sunday Magazine: “Rubbish”; Prospect: “If I Ruled the World”; GQ: “Just a Quick E-mail”; Esquire: “Dog Days”; The Best American Essays 2010 and The Best American Travel Writing 2010: “A Guy Walks into a Bar Car.”
ISBN 978-0-316-12568-0