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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Monday, August 27
Got a call at Hotel B about 0300 from a woman looking for her husband…This is tough…One of the things you pay for as a hotel guest is privacy, to include having the misfits at the front desk not blabbing whether you’re there or not…This is especially true with wives looking for husbands, altho there was no reason to doubt her when she said her husband was working in town and she hadn’t heard from her for a couple of days.
Anyway, I told her I was not allowed to give out guest information…This was a lie because I’ve received no training on hotel policy in the matter, so I didn’t know for sure, but it’s pretty standard in the industry…The lady said I was the first hotel she’d called that wouldn’t tell her anything…I offered apologies, but declined to join the club of those who blabbed.
There is a workaround tho…Had she called and asked for Joe Smith’s room I would have looked Joe Smith up and either connected her to the room or told her we didn’t have anyone by that name registered, a trick hookers in Vegas used when looking to verify if a customer was staying there.
I wanted to tell the lady there was a time when you shouldn’t expect to hear from a traveling husband until after a he’d been gone at least a couple of days, maybe more, but with mobile phones, those days are long gone and she sounded young and may not remember those days.
I do, tho…I remember when Pa Sparrow would go away for one of his infrequent business trips, usually to the company plant in St Joseph’s Missouri…Pa Sparrow was big on getting acclimated and while we knew where he was staying Mom said we shouldn’t bother him unless it was an emergency and Pa’s was usually scheduled to call us on Tuesday, and at a designated time, too…Pa Sparrow could generally be counted on to come home with the current issue of Playboy, for future reference, which could always be found in the bottom drawer of his dresser.
Pa Sparrow would have been 91 today…He made it to 77 or so, I can’t remember, really, and died in a home…I thought about that, today…I am not a complete dolt yet, but the mind doesn’t do what it used to, tho my body is still pretty strong…Except for my teeth, of course, some of which are getting replaced next month…I didn’t really think about too much else, tho, really…I’m still young enough to not dwell and getting old.
We were really slow and really overstaffed at the retailer tonight, so I spent virtually the entire shift doing the go-backs that had been stockpiling the past couple of days when we were swamped and understaffed…The downside to this, of course, is I am often in a section where customers will ask me questions about things I know little or, as likely as not, nothing about…Like hardware…I know squat about hardware, but I do what I can…If I know what the customer is talking about, which is not always the case…Tonight an older lady came up and asked about something or other and she may as well been speaking in tongues for all I understood, and I had to go and get Ed to help her.
GM Adam and I are at the front desk at Hotel B right before I take over for the night when a guy comes up looking for some change so he can do his laundry…Adam notes there aren’t any quarters in the drawer, but he can go get some from the laundry machines and the guy asks if he buys a soda with a fiver will the machine give quarters in change???…Adam looks at me as if I’m the All Knowing Master of Vending Machine Change and I – and this was pretty funny – glance around as if looking for someone else.
Hell, I don’t know what change the vending machine gives…It could give it in kopecs for all I know, I’ve never used it, but the guy is in good spirits and says he’ll go buy a soda, find out and report back to us…He never comes back, tho, so I presume he got the required change.
We are still not completely squared away at the front desk…Internet service is back, however, Adam said the tech was unable to actually fix the wired connection, so he set up a wireless connection, the same one the guests use…And while there is paper in the printers, the printers aren’t connected to the wireless setup…Also, we are out of biscuits which means there will not be biscuits and gravy like we normally have on Tuesday mornings…I know you probably thought I baked them fresh every day, but actually, they are delivered and immediately put in deep freeze until needed…I don’t make the gravy, either…It comes in a #10 can and I put it in the crock pot about 0300 and let it heat up…Not today tho, because we don’t have biscuits and you can’t really have biscuits and bagels.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0830 Monday until 1400 Monday…Slept well and I was actually up before the alarm feeling rested…14 hours for the week is, as fans of the Sleep Log know, is about average.
The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th century British novel of the same name.
