I think the most memorable experience I had in France was visiting the Cathedral at Chartres. It's a four-hundred-year-old cathedral, beautiful stained glass, and it's a very, very moving experience, and as I was writing my name on it with a can of spray paint . . .

Steve Martin’s line is a classic bait-and-switch joke: it begins as a sincere travel reminiscence—reverent language, awe at antiquity and stained glass—then abruptly undercuts that tone with an act of petty vandalism. The humor depends on the collision between high culture (a revered Gothic cathedral) and low, selfish impulse (tagging it), exposing how easily “moving experiences” can be cheapened by ego and thoughtlessness. The exaggerated confession also satirizes the way people sometimes treat historic sites as backdrops for personal branding, turning communal heritage into a canvas for individual attention.