Response to Sedaris

    

            This is definitely one of the most eccentric, yet interesting essays I have ever read.  I hated getting distracted or interrupted because I didn’t want to put it down; that has rarely ever happened.  It starts out with a boy who performs some odd antics in the classroom, such as leaving his chair 28 times in one day and licking a light switch.  His teacher, Miss Chestnut, takes note of this and tells the boy she wants to visit his mother because she wasn’t sure if his mother saw how he behaved, or if he reserves his eccentricities exclusively for Miss Chestnut and the classroom.  However, even out of both the classroom and home, he would still behave in such a way where people would think that he had “special problems.”  For example, he would pause every couple seconds to lick mailboxes and touch leaves which he presumed that grabbed his attention.  It was strange to read that it failed to amaze him that people didn’t notice these things.  As his mother and Miss Chestnut were discussing his behavior, she tells the teacher that she is not shamed or seriously bothered by and tells her he’ll simply “come out of it.”  Following Miss Chestnut’s visit, his father attempted to cure him with a number of threats.  For instance, his father thoroughly told him to never put his nose on the windshield while they were driving.  And what do yano, he did.  This lead to a bloody nose and he actually said he loved the feeling of that!  His unorthodox ways of behaving accompanied him throughout high school and most of his college life.  However, at the end of his college days, he said that college was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him.  His habits faded and he soon lost interest in performing those strange antics he displayed in his earlier days of living.