naked: a plague of tics

Usually anything written by David Sedaris proves to be an easy read. I love the style Sedaris uses throughout his writing. While reading his story, I found my laughing at his witty jokes and sense of humor. The story introduces Sedaris as a young boy displaying signs of obsessive compulsive disorder. It seems as though the nervous tics he suffered from were not seen as a 'defect' at the time. All throughout his time in elementary and middle school, Sedaris's teachers found his obsessive tics to be disruptive in the classroom and just down right weird. Teacher after teacher meets with his mother, discussing the oddities of his behavior. We can gather by the description of Sedaris's mother that she is quite the alcoholic. In addition to his mother's problems, his father seems to be somewhat of a hoarder (seems to be a bit ironic to think their child is the one with all the problems, eh?). By the time he reaches college, Sedaris picks up a new habit that replaces some of his tics. He finds that smoking allows himself to continue his fidgety behavior except in a more normal nature. As time progresses, his tics aren't as obvious to others and have progressively died down.

After reading the entirety of the story, I found two of David Sedaris's awkward situations to be my favorite. The first takes place within the first two paragraphs of the story. The way Miss Chestnut points out his OCD is great. I personally enjoyed when she asked him in regard to the licking of light switches, "Would you like me to come over to your house and put my tongue on your light switches? Well, would you?" It seems a bit mean to call him out in front of an entire class, but yet none the less hilarious. Now what I thought was the best part of the story was Sedaris's feelings toward his roommate. He so badly wanted to be able to rock back in forth alone in the confines of his dorm room. He formulated an idea hoping his roommate would never come back after visiting his girfriend. Instead just about the opposite happened. The couple broke up two months later and Sedaris found himself in hell yet again.