In many ways 2020 probably hasn't turned out quite as David Sedaris imagined it in the early 2000s, his father still being alive--going on 96 and living an assisted living home last I heard--being the most positive aspect. He mines the same territory again and again -- stories of growing up with his dysfunctional, quirky, yet lovable family. His family is usual but extraordinary as families are, and his outlook is refreshingly unperturbed by the need for simplistic message seeking so beloved of plenty of his peers.

BB-size pellets clattered onto the floor, and as I followed them with my eyes, she snatched up a roll of Necco wafers. That was romantic, or would have been had he rushed to my side rather than stepping over my body to fetch the dustpan. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives - a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. I had just started to mutilate a miniature box of Red Hots when my mother pried them from my hands, accidentally finishing the job for me. Maybe it is that old people think too much because they have a lot in their brains from all the years of accumulating knowledge.Thanks to the combo of some sort of sinus condition/basement dust I lugged upstairs along with the decorations, I laughed until I was overtaken by an emphysema-ish coughing fit/wheeze that may or may not have concluded with me urinating a bit on myself - and if THAT isn’t an endorsement, I don’t know what is. The children despised me, but there was a familiarity, almost a comfort, in their hatred, and so their parents kept me on. While our departures had been relatively painless, Paul’s was like releasing a domestic animal into the wild.

These are scenes of family life at its best, written with clarity but also with great affection, through which the character of the author emerges, watchful, self-mocking and full of understanding. Much of Sedaris' humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating, and it often concerns his family life, his middle class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, Greek heritage, various jobs, education, drug use, homosexuality, and his life in France with his partner, Hugh Hamrick.

Even while in a stupid ass Fiat rather than a Volkswagen since mine decided to die like a whore on the corner a few months back.