The Last Time

On a recent flight to San Antonio with my husband, I was scrolling through the in-flight entertainment when I stumbled upon David Sedaris’s MasterClass on storytelling. I had planned to do some writing on this flight, but listening to someone talk about writing sounded like almost the same thing. So I plugged in my headphones.

Sedaris began with a question he is often asked: “How do you come up with your stories?” This hit close to home. I write personal essays like Sedaris, and lately, I’d been worried about running out of material. Because, really, how many interesting things can happen to one person? Once you’ve been kicked off a television show and shared a lunchroom with vampires, chances are, your fullest life is behind you.

Sedaris suggested one way to find more stories is to ask people better questions. Not like, “Where are you from?” but, “When’s the last time you touched a monkey?” I scribbled that one down, glanced at Andrew, and smiled. He smiled back, unaware that I was crafting a script for our future interactions with Texans.

That evening, we boarded one of those little riverboats in downtown San Antonio. The driver, a young man who looked as though he would rather be anywhere else, asked if we wanted our picture taken.

“No, that’s alright,” I said, suddenly feeling above such things.

The driver nodded and resumed staring into the distance.

“When’s the last time…” I started, then froze. Turns out, I’m not the sort of person who can casually drop the monkey question. What if he had just touched a monkey and didn’t want to talk about it?

Instead, I asked, “What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened on this boat?” At this, he came alive. And he had stories. Streakers. Beer dumped from bridges onto unsuspecting heads. A teenager who tried to jump onto a moving boat and broke both legs. And then there was the man who stood on a bridge and flung counterfeit $100 dollar bills into the river, sending river-walkers into an absolute frenzy.

“Grown adults jumped in,” the driver said. “Ladies laid flat on their stomachs and used purses as buckets to scoop up the floating paper.”

“I guess,” he continued, “the craziest things don’t happen on the boat. It’s what we see while we’re on it.” Like a ride at Disney, I thought—but instead of animatronic pirates invading a town, you float past scenes of this American life in all its terrible glory.

The next day, Andrew and I stood outside a downtown coffee shop, debating whether to stop for a break. I wished out loud that I hadn’t left my book at the hotel. All day, Andrew had been bothering me about riding electric scooters, and all day, I had been turning him down. It’s a shame that a man who burns for adventure married someone made of wet kindling, but he rarely complains. He takes his thrills where he can get them, and here now was a rental scooter laying at our feet. Before I could say anything, he was already gone— a streak of middle-aged joy zipping down the street.

I walked inside, ordered a drink, and sank down into a leather couch.

Then, a voice.

“Excuse me, Miss.”

A man leaned down to meet me at eye level. He was dressed in a black sweatsuit, which swallowed his wiry frame. His face was kind but weathered; His eyes a pale, washed-out blue; His green toboggan frayed at the edges.

From the looks of him, it wasn’t hard to guess what he might ask— for some cash, most likely. But before he had the chance, another voice cut in.

“Listen, you don’t need to bother this lady.”

This from a younger man, clean-shaven, styled, cowboy-adjacent. You could tell he was the kind of man who took great pleasure in surveying a scene, and deciding what needed setting-to-right.

“I wasn’t bothering her,” the man in the toboggan said, turning back to me “Was I bothering you?”

He leaned in slightly. This was, apparently, against cowboy law. The younger man stepped between us and gestured for him to take a step back.

“Don’t wave your arms at me like that,” the toboggan man snapped. “Shooing me away like I’m some dog!”

“Come on now,” the cowboy said, softer now, like he was talking to a spooked horse, “Time to leave.”

The toboggan man got louder, “Was I bothering you?” But this time, he was asking the whole room, which had gone silent, watching like they were all on little riverboats.

A manager joined us, which upset the toboggan man further. He squared his stance and pulled one fist back, winding it up slow, like a cartoon character. The manager clenched his own fist and asked him again to leave. I half-expected a tumble weed to roll between them.

“I wasn’t bothering anyone! Was I bothering you?”

He was asking me. He was asking everyone.

The cowboy, now on his phone, announced he was calling the police. With that, the toboggan man shoved open the back door and disappeared.

The coffee shop exhaled. Cups clinked. Forks scraped. The espresso machine hissed.

The cowboy turned back to me. “Are you alright?” I nodded.

Just then, Andrew breezed through the same door the toboggan man had exited. His cheeks were windburned; His eyes bright.

He tossed my book on the table and grinned. “What’d you get to drink?" Which was funny, because he was asking the wrong question but couldn’t have known it. The right question being, of course, “When’s the last time you incited a fistfight?”

Later, when the police arrived, Andrew sat slack-jawed as I recounted the story, occasionally blinking like he was trying to reconcile the woman he had left with the criminal witness he had returned to. I looked around at the other customers, guessing at their small talk. What’s new with you? Seen any good movies lately? And I wondered if any of us were brave enough to ask—or to answer— the real question still hanging in the room: When’s the last time you let yourself be bothered— I mean really, truly bothered by the world?

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So what about you, dear Reader? When is the last time you let yourself be bothered by the world? Or, if you’d rather: When’s the last time you touched a monkey? When’s the last time you incited a fistfight?