74 pages • 2 hours read
David SedarisMe Talk Pretty One Day
Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 26-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part Deux
Chapter 26 Summary: The Late Show
Sedaris struggles with falling asleep naturally. He is accustomed to “passing out” (248) after drinking heavily. His heavy drinking is a carryover from his years of drug use. As he works to remedy his sleeping habits, he reveals that one way to get through the night without drinking is to indulge in several fantasies that he calls “Mr. Science,” “The Knockout” and “I’ve Got a Secret.”
In his “Mr. Science” fantasy, he is a genius scientist who gains worldwide recognition after creating a serum that expediates the growth of trees. This innovation leads him to develop cures for nearly every disease from cancer to various sexually transmitted illnesses. In “The Knockout,” he is a medical student who accidentally stumbles into a successful heavyweight championship career. When he is outed in the media after being discovered with a dream-altered version of Hugh, he is frustrated at the public attention surrounding his sexuality. He wins each match easily, concluding at the end of this fantasy that boxing is only a means to support his medical student career. In “I’ve Got a Secret,” he is a female White House intern whose affair with the U.S. President lands her a lot of unwanted attention. Refusing to confess to the affair, she is sent to prison. When she completes her prison stint, she writes a book, which is Lolita word for word.
He acknowledges that these fantasies are just a means of fulfilling the qualities he lacks in real life and that they do not actually help him sleep. It just allows him to imagine himself as someone else who isn’t an insomniac.
Chapter 27 Summary: I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing
The chapter opens with Sedaris’s father describing a brown object he found in his suitcase that he had bitten into, thinking it was a cookie. Before he can finish the story, he is interrupted by his listeners who are confused as to why his first instinct is to eat an object he does not recognize.
Sedaris offers an abbreviated history of his father’s fixation on keeping food past its prime and then consuming it. Sedaris reasons it is partly for cultural reasons as well as frugality. His father would purchase only food marked with “reduced for quick sale” tags, but never saw the need to eat it immediately. As a result, Sedaris grew up with rotting food around the house. This behavior extended well into Sedaris’s adulthood. Every Christmas, Sedaris and his siblings would have to confirm with their father that the ingredients for the holiday dinner were fresh. Their father would insist that the ingredients were indeed fresh though Sedaris would discover upon arrival that many of the ingredients contained mold or had aged terribly in the freezer.
When it comes time for Sedaris to host Christmas in France, he catches his father with rotted food he had brought from home stashed in his luggage. Sedaris returns to the scene in the chapter’s opening where his father had just announced eating a foreign object from his suitcase. His father reveals that the object was his hat that had broken off and that he had already taken several bites before realizing his error. Sedaris speculates that if history is an indicator, his dad will find some way to repurpose the hat for food as he has always done his entire life.
Chapters 26-27 Analysis
While previous chapters have explored Sedaris’s relationship to language, chapter 26 offers a resolution to his concerns about language and connection. The chapter is a meta-narrative commentary on his inclination towards fantasy and storytelling. After sharing several fantasies he indulges in when he cannot sleep, he reveals, “My epic fantasies offer the illusion of generosity but never the real thing. I give to some only so I can withhold from others” (263). These statements can be applied to Sedaris’s relationship to language in previous chapters. They suggest that while his stories and fantasies may give the impression of full disclosure, they are also markers of his vulnerability. The tender tone in this admission varies from the prevalent sardonic humor of previous chapters.
In chapter 27, the American idiom, “I’ll have what he’s having” is revised for the chapter title, “I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing.” The substitution of words refers to Sedaris’s father’s accidental consumption of his hat. The incident is the opening premise of the chapter, which begins, “We’re in Paris, eating dinner in a nice restaurant, and my father is telling a story” (265). As part of the closing chapter of the book, this opening sentence refers to a storytelling tradition that Sedaris inherits from his father. His father’s story includes a history of compulsion that is mirrored in Sedaris’s life, the obsessive quality of which feeds into his rich fantasies.
Chapter 27 also highlights Sedaris’s father’s desire to never see anything wasted, a quality that can be applied to Sedaris’s ability to turn even the most mundane moments of his life into a full story. When Sedaris’s father announces that he stopped eating the hat after realizing what it was, Sedaris and his siblings believe that he will continue eating it in secret. Sedaris writes, “Because it didn’t kill him, the cap had proved edible and would now be savored and appreciated in a different way” (272). While the joke is at his father’s expense, the sentiment is expressed with partial admiration for his father’s ability to see potential in all objects. In much the same way, Sedaris’s stories glean from all experiences, finding new potential in their telling.
Related Titles
By David Sedaris
