July 13
Once again tragedy strikes. July has not been a kind month.
Lee is leaving!
I am not making that up. He had mentioned he was going to start the corrections academy in September, but evidently they found out about his experience with the International Henry Units because Lee said they called and said they had an opening at the end of this month.
This is bad. Lee and I haven’t worked the hotel together in a while, he’s in the brewery all the time now and I’m outside, but still. I am trying to be brave.
The dismantling of outside continues as four more palm trees were removed from North Drive, but there wasn’t any traffic control required of us because the tree removal guys took care of coning everything off for us.
I’m at Eddie – 1 tonight. Recently dispatch has taken to sending Eddie – 1 to 482 at 0100 instead of 0300. I didn’t have a whole lot of say in the matter, and I have an open mind, but offhand I’m not entirely pleased. With an 0300 482 you can divvy up the first four hours into manageable one or two-hour segments and then, BAM!, before you know it, it’s time for lunch and when you get back you only have three hours to kill.
Now, though, it’s a dead sprint to 0100, and, when you get back you have five (5) hours to kill.
Key tonight is I am going to piss Guy off and not go armed, even though I could, since I am a qualified outside unit. Officially, I am not going armed because the biggest criminals encountered at Eddie – 1 are wayward pedestrians looking for a shortcut to New York, New York who, by and large, don’t really deserve to be shot.
The real reason is wearing a gun makes sitting at Eddie – 1 difficult because the way the chair is constructed – combined with my favored sitting position with my feet up – could result in the armrest pushing a button on the gun and release the magazine and then you have to go pick it up and check to make sure no bullets fell out…I know this from experience and, fortunately, all bullets were accounted for…Also key is it is considered bad form to take your gun out and set it on the desk.
Bi-Bob had a couple of funny lines last night. The first came as we were leaving the office. I was wearing the outside summer uniform, which includes shorts, and I had made the mistake of preceding Bi-Bob out the door when he whistles at me and sings “Who wears short shorts?” which was funny enough to get a smile and a chuckle out of Rich, which for him is the same as a hearty laugh.
Then about 0630 or so I’m at the employee entrance and Bi-Bob is there with the new girl, Lisa, and I walk in and Bi-Bob asks how much do I like him?
“Like is a pretty strong word, Bob,” I said. “Tolerate would be a better word. In fact, when you were on vacation I didn’t even miss you.”
Bi-Bob reminded me that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
– Bob, that’s more of a boy/girl scenario.
– We’re a boy/girl scenario, Gaylon.
I laughed. I informed Bi-Bob we weren’t a boy/girl scenario and poor Lisa was left to wonder exactly what in the hell was going on.
