Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, May 19
Boy, was I a slug at Hotel A this morning…There isn’t a whole lot to do on graveyard, of course, but even by my standards, I was more inert than usual.
I got there fresh from the retailer and pretty tired for some reason…More so than usual…I can’t really start what small amount of night auditing there is until midnight (0000 hours in military time) so I did some writing done and then got to work about 0100 or so…The work is easy…You click some buttons on the computer and print, scan and email some reports and it is usually done in a half-hour…It wasn’t always like this…I’ve been working night audits off and on over my working life and I remember ye olde days in the racket, where there were receipts to coordinate and paper folios to check and rates to post but those days are long gone.
Anyway, after the audit is done I’m usually good for farting around on a project but not today…I was too beat, so I spent the next four hours watching MST3K on the laptop…I ended up dozing off so after using the can about 0300 I started the movie over and more or less made it thru the whole thing.
The only downside was breakfast was a bit late…Janis reported the microwave had stopped working for a day or two but rather than get a new one – or, better yet, two new ones – they ID’d the problem as coming from the power strip it was plugged into…Well, something is still mucked up because the microwave shuts off whenever the hell it wants to.
I discovered this while nuking some scrambled eggs…They had the ones that come in the half gallon plastic milk carton out and you cook them for two ten minutes stretches, then one four-minute session…24 minutes, so you gotta plan ahead, and I usually start about 0545, 45 minutes before breakfast opens…Well, the microwave stopped working during the second ten-minute session and I didn’t notice it until I went int0 the prep room expecting it to be about done…This is why we need two microwaves…This threw warming up the potatoes and sausage off and breakfast wasn’t totally ready until 0645….I would have issued apologies but there weren’t any guests around.
Q, the kid who relieves me, was actually the only breakfast customer…He was, as per his usual, there early…God bless this kid…I get relieved late at both hotels regularly – at least until I start whining about it, then everyone snaps to for a while – and it’s comforting to see him there at 0630 or 0645…The fact he dresses more casually than we’re looking for isn’t my lookout, but I’ve been there over a year and still don’t have a shirt or name tag so he may not, either.
Not only is it slow at the retailer it’s boring…No decent bachelor purchases, no smarmy customers trying to return old alarm clocks and tape decks, tho there was one kid who came in about a half-hour before closing..It was plain it was his first visit to our store because he was standing near the service desk holding a list and looking around blankly…I asked him what he was looking for and he showed me a list his wife had given him, written on a pad from a nearby hotel…The list was written in a strong, feminine hand that gave the impression it expected compliance.
I happened to check him out and a few minutes later, in about the amount of time it would have taken him to return to the hotel, get fresh orders from his wife and then return, I saw him trotting into the store again – which was rather funny – tho I had other duties and didn’t see what he bought.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0830 Saturday until 1430 Saturday…Six hours, more or less the Saturday average…When I go to sleep Saturday morning’s I’ve generally been up since Friday morning and I’m still surprised I don’t sleep more on Saturday’s…I know you are, too.
The weekly total of 41.5 hours seems low, so I double checked the daily figures and it’s correct…It’s the lowest total of the month and about three hours less than April’s monthly average…I don’t complain.
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.
The Diary of a Nobody was inspired by the 19th century British novel of the same name.
Read Gaylon’s latest: We The People: Making America America Again at www.GaylonKent.com
