I walked into the University of Minnesota book store, which had recently moved from a cold, futuristic underground building on campus to the basement of the recently renovated, though still foreboding, student union. Never having attended a public book signing by an author before, I expected a small, intimate gathering of gray, bearded men and humorless women who wore wool socks in summer. Instead, on this unseasonably cool June night in 2004, I found a space the size of a small theater filled with nearly 1500 people who looked like they had just been shuttled from an airport gate. Wearing bright shorts and T-shirts over plump physiques, the vast majority of these folks - 98 percent of whom were Caucasian - sported tans that made them look like marshmallows dipped in butterscotch sauce.

Scanning the sea of butterscotch marshmallows, it looked as if all the black plastic chairs were filled, and I was prepared to join the hundred-odd people leaning against bookshelves at the perimeter. But as I honed in on the shelves, I noticed the dark pockmarks of empty seats in the expanse of white and yellow, and I asked one attractive woman in black, who was also thinner and paler than the rest of the crowd, if the empty seat next to hers might have an invisible “reserved” sign on it. She shook her head, and I slid in the aisle towards it with great relief.

Mind you, though I was tired, I would not have cared if no seat was available. I was so excited to finally attend a live appearance by David Sedaris that I was ready to do the piggy-back on someone’s shoulders. I had, like most of his fans, been following him since his regular appearances in the mid-1990’s on National Public Radio’s “This American Life.” Sedaris, in fact, is the first writer since Dylan Thomas to be as popular for his public readings as his writing. Because of this, there are few people left who can read his brilliantly concise, uncannily funny autobiographical pieces without hearing his twangy, almost emotionless monotone.

Though I was impressed by the large turnout at the bookstore, I doubted if literally everyone attending this book signing, for his latest collection, “Dress Your Parents in Corduroy and Denim”, had actually read his work. I had no choice but to assume that about the chubby, acne-scarred twenty-year-old guy seated to my right. In the tortuous half-hour before the reading was to begin at 7:00 PM, the student, who looked like a slightly retarded version of Alex “Mongo” Karras, kept turning to either talk to and nuzzle his girlfriend, seated next to him, or talk to (but not nuzzle) another porcine twenty-year-old guy and his girlfriend quivering in the next two chairs. What for most other people would have been a harmless way to kill time involved, for Mongo, having to thrust his elbow into my guts, or bang his shoulder into my face, every time he wanted to say something - which was about every ninety seconds.

“This guy’s, like, funny ‘n stuff, right?” Mongo would ask his buddy.

“Yeah, I s’pose.” Buddy would reply with a snort and a shrug of the shoulders.

As Mongo and Buddy kept snorting, I realized not only had they never read or heard of David Sedaris, but probably had never heard of National Public Radio -- or, if they had, must have sided with their favorite morning shock jock’s assesment of it as a cesspool of liberals, gays and other People Who Hate America. It was probably just as well that these dudes never experienced the author’s words, for they were, in fact, exactly like characters from his work - particularly “Picka Pocketoni“ which detailed Sedaris’ ride on the Paris metro with four slobs from Houston, who loudly derided Paris and Parisians in the mistaken assumption that nobody else on the car knew English. Chances are, Mongo and Buddy’s girlfirends were avid fans of the writer, and, for some reason, had insisted their - temporary - boyfriends accompany them to this “boring-ass” event, for which they would be rewarded with beer, nachos and fellatio.

A few minutes after 7:00, the author appeared at a podium in front of the seating area and was immediately greeted by applause and cheers. He grabbed the microphone attached to the podim and, to the amusement of himself and everyone else, lowered it from the position a much taller woman who had just introduced him left it at. Thanks to the four months a year he spends touring, Sedaris’ slight form and classically Greek face - suggesting a younger, healthier version of “Never On Sunday” director Jules Dassin - are now almost as recognizable as his voice.

Instead of making remarks about Minnesota’s butt-freezing winters or “The Mall”, Sedaris went right to opening his book and reading a piece entitled “Blood Work.” It detailed how, as a housecleaner in New York City, one client had hired him under the mistaken assumption that he was a nude, or “naughty”, cleaner - a profession that went the way of phone sex and mud wrestling. He read the essay with genuine enthusiasm, despite the tinniness of the sound system, and despite the fact that for years I always pictured him as reading his works with the frown of a tax accountant and the slumped shoulders of a backpack-weary student.

It wasn’t long before the not-so-weary “student” seated next to me started a new round of prods and bangs. Exhibiting a compulsion that was not just reserved for lulls before the main attraction, Mongo still had to turn to his friends, thrust parts of himself into mine, and shake like a bobblehead doll every time he thought something was funny, which, in this case, was about every ten seconds. Admittedly, it filled me with the warm fuzzies to see someone who probably read nothing for pleasure besides “Juggs” be so turned on by the adventures of a diminutive gay man who is nobody’s idea of an NFL/rap star. But it was frustrating to be wedged next to a doofus who was clearly so used to roaming the Midwestern prairies like a lovesick bear that he had no clue of how to maneuver himself in a seating area tighter than an airplane’s.

I did manage to find welcome distraction not just in the star of the show, but also from a pudgy, butterscotch-marshmallow Mom seated in front of me. With the same regularity as Mongo, Mom reacted to the author’s funny words by turning around to smile and chortle at a boy seated behind me. The kid, whom I can only assume was her son forced to sit separately because of the crowd, looked to be about ten. Draped like a soiled rag across his chair, he showed absolutely no interest in the housecleaning story, or even acknowledgment of Mom’s perpetual head swiveling. If this little guy ever does read any of David’s accounts of growing up with his seemingly average - yet very strange - family in North Carolina, he should find some satisfaction in reading that Mom has a role model in Mother Sedaris.

Within about thirty minutes, Mother Sedaris’ offspring finished “Blood Work” and then answered a few questions, one of which pertained to news of a movie adaptation of his books. He replied, “I had an option on a film to be directed by Wayne Wang, an absolutely wonderful director, but I decided not to renew it.” As a few subdued gasps and groans fizzled up from the crowd, he went on to explain, “I was talking with my sister about it, and she asked me, ‘Is
whoever’s playing me gonna be fat?’ I then realized that I could not in good conscience humiliate people I care about like that.” Despite portraying his sister in countless essays as a delightfully sadistic young diva, Sedaris evidentally felt it was unsportsmanlike to have her represented in an unflattering light on the big screen. He then thanked us all for coming, and the room cascaded with applause.

A moment later, all the occupants stood up and began slowly shuffling from their seats, either to leave the store altogether, as I would, or wait in what was no doubt going to be an enormous line for the author to sign copies of his book. As I followed the pale woman and those in front of her moving at a glacial pace, it didn’t surprise me when I became aware of Mongo fidgeting and rocking right behind me. It wasn’t long before he blurted out, “Come on, let’s go! Let’s go!” I slowly turned my head and gave him a look I had been hoping to pelt him with all evening. It was the same one a passenger on public transportation might give a rider who had continually blown a nose overflowing with mucous into a threadbare tissue during the entire trip. Mongo, however, paid no attention to my unquestionably hateful gaze, and merely looked off into the distance at the urine-tinged pitcher and Velveeta-smeared nachos that awaited him.

But, as I walked home, I felt those warm fuzzies again. I realized that, even in the age of dot.com piracy, interactive death games and virtual bestiality, a self-confessed technophobe who composes his work on a typewriter can still reach out to appreciative readers in the same way authors did before there were typewriters. For that reason, there is still hope that the words of a David Sedaris can inspire butterscotch marshmallows like Mongo, Buddy, Mom ... and me.