The woman in charge of costuming assigned us our outfits and gave us a lecture on keeping things clean. She held up a calendar and said, "Ladies, you know what this is. Use it. I have scraped enough blood out from the crotches of elf knickers to last me the rest of my life. And don't tell me, 'I don't wear underpants, I'm a dancer.' You're not a dancer. If you were a real dancer you wouldn't be here. You're an elf and you're going to wear panties like an elf.

Sedaris was raised in a suburb of Raleigh North Carolina. Sedaris and his sister Amy shared "The Talent Family" credit on the latter's short-lived sketch comedy show Exit 57 while David was a contributing writer.

Much of Sedaris's humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating and often concerns his family life his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh North Carolina Greek heritage jobs education drug use obsessive behaviors and his life in France London and the South Downs. He publiDavid Sedarisd his first collection of essays and short stories Barrel Fever in 1994. In 2010 he released a collection of anthropomorphic stories Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary.