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 23-25Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part Deux
Chapter 23 Summary: Picka Pocketoni
On the Paris Métro, Sedaris and Hugh encounter a band of Texan youth debating whether Houston or Paris is the better city. Sedaris regards them with disdain as they refuse to get up from their foldable seats to accommodate the growing crowd on the train. His irritation grows when they proceed to list what Sedaris believes to be minute and inconsequential reasons such as ice cubes and free parking to support the stance that Houston is the better city.
Entering a second train, Sedaris wedges himself between a middle-aged American couple, Martin and Carol, who have taken over the standing pole. The couple proceeds to gossip in English about the way Sedaris smells, mistaking him for a Frenchman who does not speak English. Martin indicates to Carol that Sedaris is a pickpocket and advises his wife to be careful with her pocketbook. Fantasizing about the perfect revenge, Sedaris imagines himself pretending to steal Hugh’s wallet, which would incite the couple to report him to the police, leading to their humiliation. The fantasy is disrupted when Hugh indicates that their stop has arrived. By then, the couple has already reasoned that Sedaris and Hugh are accomplices, thwarting Sedaris’s plans to shame the couple.
Sedaris remembers a prank his sister Amy once played when they were taking the train together in Chicago. Departing several stops before him, Amy cried out, “Good luck beating that rape charge” (226), which led to a tense train ride for Sedaris. He thinks of saying something similarly clever to the couple, but he cannot think of what to say in time. He resigns to having passed as Parisiennes to this American couple, where he and Hugh are “no longer finicky little boyfriends on their overseas experiment, but rogues, accomplices” (226).
Chapter 24 Summary: I Almost Saw This Girl Get Killed
Hugh and Sedaris attend the Festival of Saint Anne in Normandy where volunteers can opt to spend time in an enclosed arena with angry cows called vachettes for waived entry fee. Sedaris turns down this opportunity and has little sympathy for those who choose to participate in this dangerous activity. However, when the first vachette is released into the arena, he is reminded of an incident a month before where he witnessed several people stuck on a carnival ride, namely a blonde woman who seemed in danger of falling. He recalls the obscene pleasure of potentially witnessing her death and the story he would be able to tell after. Thinking of his inappropriate pleasure at the sight, he begins to revise his feelings towards the volunteers in the arena with the vachettes, even yelping and grabbing the knees of Hugh and a stranger when a vachette breaks the ribs of one volunteer. He expresses sympathy for the vachettes’ fury too as he argues that being made into a spectacle is enraging. He imagines this is what the blonde woman must have felt when the carnival crowd surrounded her, hoping to watch her fall.
Chapter 25 Summary: Smart Guy
Sedaris once worked with a man named Reggie cleaning construction sites in Raleigh, North Carolina. Reggie had a 130 IQ and was insistent that his high intelligence put him above their menial labor. When Sedaris humorously chided him, Reggie pointed out that Sedaris’s IQ likely meant that he would be sweeping construction sites for the rest of his life.
Years later, Sedaris thinks of Reggie when he signs up for an IQ test with Hugh. Sedaris thinks that by bringing Hugh along, he will have someone to compare his test results with, assured that Hugh is not more intelligent than him. He considers little moments in his life where he thought he might have been a genius, but can only cite instances where his experiments have been a source of annoyance to those around him, earning him the nickname “smart guy” from his father who used the moniker to admonish him for making trouble.
At the test site, Mensa member, Madame Haberman is the proctor. After several grueling portions of the test, Sedaris finds himself struggling. When the test results arrive a week later, Hugh receives a letter advising him to retake the test since his score put him on the cusp of Mensa membership. Meanwhile, Sedaris’s results are less than stellar. Hugh attempts to cheer him up by offering an incomplete list of things that he does well. At the chapter’s conclusion, Hugh can only list two things and asks for time to think of more.
Chapters 23-25 Analysis
Across these three chapters, Sedaris utilizes first and second stories once again to highlight his comedic approaches to resolving conflict. In chapter 23, his memory of Amy’s clever and inappropriate prank undergirds the main narrative of his train journey with offending Americans. It supplies the reader with the possibility that Sedaris may respond to the American couple on the train with the same wit as his sister. Instead, the first story reveals that Sedaris is not as quick-witted as Amy under pressure, leading to the chapter’s humorous and anti-climatic conclusion where he resigns to having assimilated to French life.
In chapter 24, the first story is set during the Festival of Saint Anne. The sight of furious vachettes leads Sedaris to recall a second story of similar spectacle a month before where he had witnessed a woman dangling atop a carnival ride. The two stories compare Sedaris’s sense of initial pleasure and excitement in witnessing the spectacle of the vachettes and the woman in danger. Through the comparison, Sedaris realizes his guilt in experiencing such glee at the two unfortunate circumstances. He concludes, however, that it was the woman who had “the most disturbing story” (237) as she was forced to watch a crowd of onlookers who had gathered, hoping to exploit the story of her tragedy for their stories.
The first story of Reggie and the IQ test is the opening premise of chapter 25 that segues into the second story of Sedaris’s IQ test years later. Sedaris signs up to take an IQ test in response to Reggie’s insulting remarks about his intelligence. Reggie’s remarks continue to resonate in Sedaris’s life as a reminder of his inadequacy, an issue that he resolves by enlisting Hugh to take the test as well. He argues, “I’d figured that, on its own, my score would mean nothing—I needed someone to compare my score with” (243). He assures himself that Hugh will not outdo him on the test by citing several humorous incidents that break from what Sedaris considers “basic intelligence” (243). When they receive the results of the test, Sedaris learns that his intelligence is just as Reggie suspected. The trajectory of the first to second story shows the inflation and eventual deflation of Sedaris’s ego through the chapter’s humiliating end.
The title of chapter 25, “Smart Guy” refers to the term that Sedaris’s father sarcastically called Sedaris when admonishing him for doing something stupid. In one instance, Sedaris’s father scolds Sedaris for applying suntan lotion on chewing gum as part of his experiment to see if the combination of the two could cure diabetes. Sedaris realizes eventually that his father’s “smart guy” reference “usually meant just the opposite” (241).
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