There was no rushing out of the Alberta Bair Theater on Thursday night after humorist David Sedaris got a hold of you.

First off, he sat signing books for fans for more than an hour after his performance ended. But there was also a camaraderie shared among the audience members who had spent two hours basking in Sedaris' wit, and it seemed nobody in the packed house wanted to leave all that behind.

Allison O'Donnell noted how Sedaris makes the mundane funny.

"He's not bored by the everyday stuff; he finds it funny," O'Donnell said.

And that makes us view our world differently. Sedaris gets away with jabs at icons, like questioning why Jesus has to be depicted as handsome and chiseled. "It's easy to worship a guy who's handsome," he told the audience.

Sedaris' sharp commentary is tempered with his humbleness and sincerity. Telling a story about meeting an Australian woman who sacrificed her family for her career, Sedaris told the audience, "Cut off your family and how would you know who you are?"

In the same story, titled "Kookaburra," which was published in The New Yorker, Sedaris sang the chorus from the "Kookaburra" song and worked in commentary about a trip to Australia with a hilarious story about his dad in "underpants" shaking a fist at David and sister Amy for singing in the middle of the night.

Sedaris is a master storyteller. His books are popular, but the treat is hearing him tell the stories, which is why his appearances on "This American Life" are so enjoyable.

Mike Galt, who came with his mom, Cheri, and friend Megan Dible, said Sedaris is genuine and his delivery is so natural. "He really seems to enjoy himself. He laughs at his own writing," Galt said.

Much of Sedaris' talk centered on his world travels and observations about new cities, like the deep-fried Coke at the Little Rock state fair or the "bold and omnipresent cats" in Iceland. His observation about Billings: Women here wear their gray hair long and the cowboys really do walk bowlegged.

"And I think camping is a horrible idea," he added.