Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Sunday, September 2
What’s really funny is people’s attitude when they come in looking for a room in a tourist town on a holiday weekend…Some are genuinely contrite…They realize there is not a reasonable expectation of a vacancy, that they should have made reservations and, well, can I help them out???
Then there are those who genuinely expect us to have a room or, are pretending to genuinely expect a vacancy because they’re embarrassed they are in this position…Had two of those this morning at Hotel B…One was about 0230, a rather tidy sort in his 20’s, the efficient-looking type you might expect to take care of his party’s lodging in advance…The other came about 0530, another kid in his 20’s who had such an impressive air of self-importance about him that I wanted to smack him…Both requested accommodations in a flippant, dismissive manner as if my years on this planet had been merely a prelude toward issuing him a room key tonight.
It’s fun to tell people like this we’re sold out, altho I affect an air of empathy…Their reactions were the same: surprise, shock, peevishness because, of course, this is all my fault we’re sold out…None of this is their fault for not planning their trip in advance….As a sociological experiment we can even carry this further for the rare occasion I do have a room available at zero-dark-thirty on a holiday weekend: the indignation when I have the nerve to quote them anything more than a rate of $29…Dude, it’s 0300, you need a place to sleep and I have one for you…The basic laws of supply and demand are not my fault, either.
And what in the hell is this reserve list that people mention from time to time???…People, there is no reserve list, nor any other list designed to keep you from staying with us…It makes some zero sense…A hotel is in business to rent rooms and you can bet I have even a broom closet clean and ready to go I am going to tell you about it.
Called JoJo, who works at Hotel B the nights I don’t, to see if she could work for me Sunday night, the 16th…That is the last night of Operation Recovery The Wife has planned for my new teeth…I’ve already reserved the time off from the retailer and Hotel A and thought it might be good to not have to work graveyard that Sunday…Initially, JoJo said no, she was going to in Vegas, which made me laff because she is always going to Vegas.
Why don’t you just move there???…You’re there every two weeks.
It’s a logical question, because she could probably secure a night audit job within five minutes of arrival…Humor, tho, is not JoJo’s strong suit, and she accepted this as a legitimate query, saying it was too expensive to live in Vegas…Well, OK, but it’s insanely expensive for working people to live in a ski resort, but maybe it is if you’re feeding a daily gambling habit instead of visiting from time to time because JoJo is on record as parking herself in front of a slot machine for hours on end.
A few minutes later tho, she called me back to report she had gotten her dates mixed up and she was going to Vegas in October and that she would be delighted to work for me the 16th.
Dead slow at the retailer tonight and the hell of it is we were adequately staffed for up to Moderately Busy…It was Anacinth and me starring at the service desk, and we had Buzz, Casmere and Susan all there to man registers and self-checkout…We got all the go-backs done and I was actually killing time until my 2230 clock-out time…The only thing of even modest interest was the shoe box I found on the floor in the shoe department…I was going to put it back but, suspecting what turned out to be the case, I opened the box and found someone’s old cowboy boots in it, meaning someone had worn the new work boots out left their old boots behind…Since we are not in the business of selling used footwear, I took the box to the service desk, tossed the old boots and made up a claims slip.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Sunday until 1400 Sunday…The 0900 time is even more of an estimate than usual, but it wasn’t later than that…Five hours, of course, isn’t the greatest start to the new sleep week, but we shall overcome.
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.
