Go Carolina

“She walked beside me and asked what appeared to be an innocent and unrelated question: ‘So, which do you like better, State or Carolina?’”

What seemed like an innocuous question was a trap set by Agent Samson. In order to evaluate the lisp, Samson got David to say a word with an “s” sound, as he answered “State.” This answer precipitated a chain of events that would test his individualism and his ability to adapt to challenging situations.

“I had no interest in football or basketball but had learned it was best to pretend otherwise.”

David’s role as the outsider is established here for the first time as he admits that he didn’t care for sports. Sedaris notes that people in this area of the South (Raleigh, North Carolina) were expected to follow collegiate athletics. David wasn’t interested in sports but learned that it was wise to pretend that he was. In addition, this passage begins his journey of conformity and hiding his identity.

“Asked by the agent which team I supported, I took my cue from her red turtleneck and told her that I was for State. ‘Definitely State. State all the way.’ It was an answer I would regret for years to come.”

David answered Samson’s question benignly, yet his answer exposes the lisp. He didn’t even like North Carolina State sports, but because Samson was wearing red, the color of State, Sedaris replied with that answer, inadvertently confirming his “need” for speech therapy by responding to a seemingly innocuous question.

“My sisters Amy and Gretchen were, at the time, undergoing therapy for their lazy eyes, while my older sister, Lisa, had been born with a lazy leg that had refused to grow at the same rate as its twin.”

David was comfortable with the idea of something about his body being “lazy” because his sisters likewise each had a lazy part of their bodies. Although he faced conflict at school, he felt comfortable enough at home to be himself. He felt supported by his family, and he related to his sisters because they had imperfections too.

“I didn’t see my sessions as the sort of thing that one would want to advertise, but as my teacher liked to say, ‘I guess it takes all kinds.’ Whereas my goal was to keep it a secret, hers was to inform the entire class.”

Sedaris wanted to keep his speech therapy and his difference hidden, but his teacher made them public knowledge, announcing his sessions to the class even when Sedaris wasn’t there. Although he tried to fit in, he was constantly seen as an outsider, and the teacher’s comments only solidified his differences from his classmates.

“She was in love with the sound of her own name and seemed to view my speech impediment as a personal assault. If I wanted to spend the rest of my life as David Thedarith, then so be it. She, however, was going to be called Miss Chrissy Samson.”

Agent Samson is portrayed as the antagonist: a woman who loves her own name. David thought this was solely because her name had many “s” sounds. Even though David had a lisp, he was forced to try to repeat her name, yet he couldn’t pronounce his own name. This shows that David wasn’t concerned about the lisp but saw that Agent Samson had apparently made it her mission to “fix” him.

“Unfortunately, I saw no popular students. Chuck Coggins, Sam Shelton, Louis Delucca: obviously, there was some connection between a sibilate s and a complete lack of interest in the State versus Carolina issue.”

David noted the other students who were required to attend speech therapy. He was on the lookout for popular kids, and he believed that if he saw a student who was unlike him, he could believe that a lisp could happen to anyone. However, only unpopular students (who, like him, were uninterested in sports) had to complete speech therapy.

“Baking scones and cupcakes for the school janitors, watching Guiding Light with our mothers, collecting rose petals for use in a fragrant potpourri: anything worth doing turned out to be a girl thing. In order to enjoy ourselves, we learned to be duplicitous.”

This is one of the first references to David’s tendency to enjoy “girl” things. These were things that the people in his community looked down on as pursuits for boys, and Sedaris later reveals that he learned he must be deceitful to simply enjoy life. This theme—Concealing One’s True Identity to Conform—continues throughout the essay: David must hide his true identity just to fit in.

“She was probably thinking along the lines of SPEECH THERAPY LAB, though a more appropriate marker would have read FUTURE HOMOSEXUALS OF AMERICA. We knocked ourselves out trying to fit in but were ultimately betrayed by our tongues.”

Sedaris reiterates how David tried to fit in but was unable to do so. His tongue always seemed to betray him, identifying him as gay. David felt like an outsider—and as if he’d always be on the outside. Fortunately for him, as he matured, so did the gay community’s assertion of human rights, and he eventually became proud of the lisp and aspects of gay identity.

“At school, where every teacher was a potential spy, I tried to avoid an s sound whenever possible. ‘Yes,’ became ‘correct,’ or a military ‘affirmative.’ ‘Please,’ became ‘with your kind permission,’ and questions were pleaded rather than asked.”

To avoid the negativity that came with others hearing the lisp, David altered his vocabulary to omit any “s” sound. An intelligent 10-year-old, he could change words on a whim. This quote further enhances the theme of Concealing One’s True Identity to Conform to society’s expectations.

“Despite the woman’s best efforts, no one seemed to make any significant improvement. The only difference was that we were all a little quieter.”

Agent Samson’s efforts to correct the lisps in her students didn’t work. The only thing she achieved was to make the boys more self-conscious. David was so embarrassed by the lisp that he took a vow of silence. This humorous claim proved to be hyperbole, but it reiterates the idea that he struggled to communicate and the hyper-awareness of the lisp impacted his self-identification.

“‘You’re pretty good at avoiding those s’s,’ she said. ‘I have to hand it to you, you’re tougher than most.’”

Agent Samson said this to David at the end of her tenure at his school. In this rare compliment, Samson recognized his tenacity and mental toughness. David maintained his linguistic adaptation and didn’t give in to conforming with therapy. Although Samson is the antagonist in this essay, she allowed a brief moment of kindness, which David saw as out of character for her.

“Here I’d thought of her as a cold-blooded agent when she was really nothing but a slightly dopey, inexperienced speech teacher. She wasn’t a bad person, Miss Samson, but her timing was off.”

As Agent Samson talked about her life during their last session, David realized that she, too, had flaws. She wasn’t the interrogation expert from a spy thriller; she was just a hapless speech therapist who was trying her best to do her job, just as his mother had said (even though doing her best didn’t equate to success). David had misjudged Samson just as she’d misjudged him.