The Tapeworm Is In Summary and Analysis

Sedaris jumps back a few months in time to the one-month French class he took while still living in New York. This French teacher is sweet and kindly walks them through an audio book on learning the basics of French. Sedaris finds that he is having a hard time memorizing all of the basic nouns and verbs. He buys a Walkman to listen to his French audio book while getting around during the day. Once past his distaste for Walkmans, Sedaris soon learns how wonderful it is. He can walk around in the world without having to interact with it. He can play his own tune to every scene and block out reality.

Sedaris learns many standard introductory phrases and rote vocabulary in his beginners' French class, most of which he never finds a use...