Summary

"Memento Mori" chronicles the author's lifelong fascination with gift giving, and all the emotional drama that often accompanied such acts of kindness and obligation. He recalls how unsubtle he is personally in pressuring Hugh and other loved ones to buy him presents, such as a painting of a whippet, until they relented and purchased what he wanted, whereupon he acted surprised by their generosity.

David explains that Hugh was very difficult to buy presents for because he is so non-communicative about his preferences. Sedaris writes about a time when Hugh verbalized a desire for a human skeleton as a gift because Hugh was a painter and wanted to use the skeleton for his work. At first, David was happy Hugh actually stated a rare preference for a present, but soon the acquisition of a genuine...