Before leaving for France, Sedaris enrolls in a month-long French class in New York City that requires him to study French using an audiocassette tape that accompanies his textbook. The tape’s content is very clean and non-controversial, centering around three fictional characters engaged in stock conversation. Sedaris realizes eventually that none of the phrases he learned from the tape would help him in French conversation. Being older, he has acquired life experiences that are not as innocent as the conversations on the tape.

As he has already grown accustomed to using a Walkman to listen to these tapes, he begins listening to English books on tape in France. He attempts at some point to listen to French books on tape, an effort that is short-lived when it proves to be too hard. When he’s about to give up, he receives a care package from Amy that consists of a pocket French medical dictionary of medical terms that satiate Sedaris’s conversational interest in medical oddities. He also receives an audio walking tour tape that he can listen to while exploring France. With these gifts, he engages in a fantasy life where he imagines himself to be fluent enough in French to have a conversation with others about medical habits.