Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Me Talk Pretty One Day, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity and Insecurity
Humor, Commentary, and Observation
Class and Belonging
Family, Love, and Support
Summary
Analysis
Sedaris moves to New York City and lives in a small but decently priced apartment. He has very little money to his name, so he likes to walk by townhouses in the evenings and pretend that he lives in them, fantasizing about leading a life of wealth and luxury. He has never gotten jealous about money before, but now that he lives in New York, he can’t help but notice the stark differences between the rich and the middle class. At one point, he gets hired as a personal assistant to a wealthy Colombian woman named Valencia who lives in a beautiful townhouse. This means that he gets to spend several days a week at her house, allowing him to appreciate what it feels like to be in the proximity of this kind of lifestyle.
Once more, Sedaris’s attention to class disparity arises in Me Talk Pretty One Day. This time, though, he approaches the issue from a different perspective. Although he’s used to recognizing that he comes from a family who has more money than most of the people in his immediate environment, he now faces the fact that he has much less than many of the people around him. This is especially apparent because he lives in New York, a city where the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor live more or less alongside one another. In this context, Sedaris suddenly becomes jealous of other people’s wealth, wishing he could live in a townhouse and lead a life of luxury. With this in mind, he decides to live vicariously through Valencia by working for her, doing what he can to feel wealthy.
Themes
Unfortunately for Sedaris, Valencia turns out to be a very grating person to be around. The thing that irks Sedaris the most is that she acts like she’s struggling financially, trying to make it seem like she’s poor when, in reality, she’s very rich. This means she always tries to pay people less than she owes them, convincing them to give her discounts by pretending to be strapped for cash. When Sedaris witnesses this, he’s startled that Valencia would feel okay taking money from people who clearly need it more than she does, but he never says anything. As for his own experience with her, she underpays him and treats him unkindly, demanding unreasonable things of him. Worse, his paychecks frequently bounce, and she says this is his bank’s fault.
When Valencia acts like she doesn’t have money when she actually does, she trivializes what it means to struggle financially. Whereas Sedaris knows what it’s like to barely scrape by in New York City, she lives in luxury. And yet, she tries to hide her lifestyle by behaving like she’s desperate for money. This is especially aggravating because it means that she takes money away from people who actually need it, prioritizing her vanity and self-image over others’ livelihood.
Themes
Valencia owns a small publishing company that publishes insignificant poets who turn to her for financial assistance, leeching off of her. When she believes that certain foreign bookstores owe her money for selling the few books her publishing company has published, she orders Sedaris to call them—even if the outstanding debt is less than twenty dollars. Tasked with this job, Sedaris pretends to make these calls, claiming the bookstores don’t pick up. One day, Valencia shows him a flyer she found announcing that a pet store lost an exotic bird named Cheeky. The reward for finding Cheeky is $750, so she suggests that she and Sedaris find the bird and split the cash. Sedaris thinks this is absurd but agrees because he has no other choice.
It’s clear that working for Valencia is emotionally draining and aggravating, since she is such an unreasonable person. However, Sedaris took this job in the first place so he could get a taste of what it’s like to be wealthy in New York City. Because he works out of Valencia’s townhouse, he can at least feel as if he’s in the vicinity of the kind of life he’d like to lead. And yet, he’s also forced to carry out pointless and unrewarding tasks while dealing with Valencia’s strange whims—things that undoubtedly keep him from enjoying the wealthy environment in which he finds himself.
Themes
While working at his desk in Valencia’s townhouse, Sedaris hears Valencia whispering at him and pointing outside. Gesturing to a pigeon on the branch of a tree outside the window, Valencia says that they have found Cheeky. She then tells Sedaris to coax the pigeon inside. He tries to tell her that this is a pigeon, but she refuses to listen. Thinking of all his bounced checks, Sedaris realizes that even if this pigeon were Cheeky, Valencia would find some way to take more than half of the reward. With this in mind, he finds himself unable to go after the bird, his pride keeping him from calling out the name “Cheeky.” Before long, the pigeon flies away, and Valencia berates Sedaris.
Working for Valencia often means going along with rather demeaning tasks—tasks like chasing a pigeon and yelling, “Cheeky!” This, it seems, is the price Sedaris must pay for trying to enter into the world of Manhattan’s wealthy elite. The question remains, however, whether or not being in this context actually lends him anything of tangible value. Given that he’s reduced to trying to coax a pigeon inside, it seems obvious that this job is not worth his while.
Themes
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Soon enough, Valencia gets Sedaris’s attention again, claiming that Cheeky has returned. Looking outside, Sedaris sees another pigeon. Again, he lets the bird fly away. Valencia insults Sedaris, telling him he’s good for nothing. This scene repeats time after time throughout the week, and Valencia gets so frustrated with Sedaris that she starts calling to tell him not to come in on the days he’s supposed to work. He knows he’s going to get fired, and he hates working for Valencia, but he also doesn’t feel like quitting and finding a new job, so he endures her mistreatment.
By this point, Sedaris knows that getting to spend time in Valencia’s beautiful townhouse isn’t worth having to deal with her unreasonable requests. However, he doesn’t quit because he doesn’t feel like finding a new job, and while this might make him seem somewhat passive or lazy, it’s worth keeping in mind that he’s trying to survive financially in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Accordingly, then, leaving his job would mean he would have to open himself up to uncertainty, not knowing where his next paycheck would come from. In this way, his financial situation keeps him from pursuing a happier life.
Themes
One day, a mover arrives to take furniture from Valencia’s house to an apartment she’s rented and furnished for one of her authors. The mover’s name is Patrick, and he quickly sees that Valencia will not tip him even though she misled him by saying that this is a one-man job, which it most certainly is not. Feeling sorry for Patrick, Sedaris helps him carry a sofa downstairs, but Patrick is the one who feels truly sorry, since he can tell that working for Valencia is terrible. Accordingly, he offers Sedaris a job as a mover. Sedaris accepts, joining Patrick’s rag-tag team of movers. Patrick is a communist who hates being called “boss,” and he drives his workers around in an old bread truck.
Finally, Sedaris manages to escape his job at Valencia’s. His new job as a mover is much different than his job as Valencia’s personal assistant—rather than spending his days in the vicinity of extreme wealth and trying to vicariously experience a life of luxury, he will now be riding around in the back of a communist’s bread truck. In this way, it becomes clear that he has given up on his desire to integrate himself into wealthy society, instead deciding to take a job that won’t be demeaning and aggravating.
Themes
The other movers include Ivan (a Russian immigrant dealing with schizophrenia), Richie (an ex-convict who murdered a man when he was a teenager), and Lyle (a folksinger from Queens). Sedaris particularly enjoys talking to Richie while sitting in the back of the truck, listening to him say things like, “I can’t promise I’ll never kill anyone again. […] It’s unrealistic to live your life within such strict parameters.” He also likes working as a mover because it gives him a good chance to meet New Yorkers, and he learns how his fellow city-dwellers live. What’s more, he gets a thrill out of the fact that people are sometimes afraid of him—all he needs to do, he notes, is throw down a dolly with some extra force and suddenly a client will frantically say, “Let’s just all calm down and try to work this out.”
It’s unsurprising that Sedaris enjoys talking to an ex-convict like Richie. After all, Me Talk Pretty One Day is full of essays in which Sedaris examines his own interest in morbid, strange, and unconventional topics. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that he would like hearing about Richie’s experience as a murderer. During this time period, Sedaris also relishes the opportunity to present himself as a different kind of person than he really is, liking the idea that his clients think he’s dangerous. This allows him to step into a new identity, one that is menacing and ominous—two things Sedaris doesn’t normally embody. This dynamic also engages Sedaris’s interest in class, since his clients clearly associate working-class people with danger and violence, assuming that anyone who works as a mover is unpredictable and tough.
Themes
Sedaris begins to feel as if his place in the world isn’t with people like Valencia, but “riding in a bread truck with [his] friends.” He also enjoys talking to the customers while driving them to their new apartments, sitting next to them in the loud truck. Under such circumstances, the customers open up about their lives, telling Sedaris and the others extremely personal details. Sedaris finds this especially amusing because the truck’s noise forces the customers to shout otherwise private information. “THEN SHE WHAT?” Sedaris and his fellow movers might ask, and the customer might say, “FUCKED HER EX-BOYFRIEND ON THIS SOFA I’D BOUGHT FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY.” Hearing this sort of thing, Sedaris might ask, “HOW MANY TIMES?”, and when the customer wonders why it matters, he might say, “IT DEPENDS. HOW MUCH WAS YOUR RENT?”
More than anything else, Sedaris is interested in other people, wanting to learn about the things that drive them to behave the way they behave. For this reason, he loves listening to his clients’ private stories while riding in the bread truck. In this capacity, he’s able to provide humorous commentary on the everyday lives of his fellow New Yorkers, proving that his job as a mover is already much more rewarding than his job as Valencia’s personal assistant. Rather than trying to climb the social ladder by associating with people like Valencia, he realizes, he’s much happier spending time with people he actually likes while doing a job that is fulfilling even if it isn’t prestigious or glamorous.
Themes
Because of his communist values, Patrick dislikes moving rich people. Sometimes when he, Sedaris, and the others show up at a wealthy young hot-shot’s apartment, he takes one look around and cancels the job, making up an excuse about something in the bread truck having suddenly broken. When Sedaris later points out that they would have earned good money, Patrick assures him that “guys like that are bad news.” However, Patrick is more than willing to go out of his way to help attractive young women move, even if some of these customers create more work than necessary for the moving team. For instance, this happens when Sedaris and the others arrive at a young woman’s apartment to find that she has packed nothing. Sedaris expects Patrick to turn right around, but instead he orders everyone to get to work while the woman talks on the phone the whole time.
Patrick has strong principles, which he prioritizes over wealth. This is all well and good, but Sedaris doesn’t like it when his boss turns clients away, since this means Sedaris misses out on money. Considering that Sedaris doesn’t necessarily share Patrick’s stringent communist values, then, it’s understandable that he might get upset when Patrick turns down an opportunity to make money. To exacerbate this dynamic, Patrick throws his principles to the wind if his clients are attractive young women, ultimately suggesting that he’s willing to bend his own rules—but only when it suits him.
Themes
Whenever Patrick turns away business from rich clients, Sedaris complains. Unfazed, Patrick tells him that they’ll make good money the next day, then asks how much money Sedaris needs anyway. When Sedaris says he wants enough money to buy a town house, Patrick informs him that he’s “in the wrong business.” Thinking about this, Sedaris concedes that Patrick is correct. Still, he can’t help but think that his job as a mover has made him much happier than he was working for Valencia. These days, he is able to walk through the city and not care that other people have more money than him. He goes to movies, smokes a little marijuana, and generally feels untouched by jealousy, knowing that—at the very least—he doesn’t have to call out the name Cheeky while chasing a pigeon.
Despite his misgivings about Patrick’s business decisions, Sedaris is confident he made the right choice by leaving Valencia behind. Although he still wants to become rich someday, he has learned to accept his current life, appreciating his newfound ability to cast aside feelings of financial jealousy. In turn, readers see that it’s often better to prioritize happiness and dignity over the desire to become rich.
Themes
