NPR’s Fresh Air posted this excerpt from David Sedaris, ‘When You Are Engulfed in Flames’ today, in honor of Bastille Day. (Sedaris lives part-time in France.)
Re-posting it here, in honor of the fact that Sedaris’s mother-in-law, Maw Hamrick, is “from Kentucky.”
“When Maw Hamrick’s around, I don’t lift a finger. All my chores go automatically to her, and I just sit in a rocker, raising my feet every now and then so she can pass the vacuum. It’s incredibly relaxing, but it doesn’t make me look very good, especially if she’s doing something strenuous, carrying furniture to the basement, for instance, which again, was completely her idea. I just mentioned in passing that we rarely used the dresser, and that one of these days someone should take it downstairs. I didn’t mean her, exactly, though at age seventy-six she’s a lot stronger than Hugh gives her credit for. Coming from Kentucky, she’s used to a hard day’s work. Choppin’, totin’, all those activities with a dropped g: the way I figure it, these things are in her genes.”
