Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Friday, April 6
This really happened:
I’m courageously manning the service desk at the retailer and a guy comes up and presents a torn up payroll check for cashing…I am not making that up!!!…Well, actually he took the pieces out of a plastic bag and asked if he had any options…He didn’t demand to exchange it for cash…Good thing, too, because I would have had to’ve said no…Apparently, his employer had torn it up in front of him for reasons which were neither explained nor asked for…I like to think I have concern for my fellow humans, but the boss didn’t tear the rip the check up because the guy had just been named Employee of the Month and I didn’t really care anyway.
He was blabbing about this when his girlfriend stepped in, successfully warding off stroke…She said the bank told her if the routing number and account numbers could be made out they could do something…All right, I thought, go to the goddamned bank…I said well, that’s probably true, but we’re not able to that, we require the check to be in one piece so the scanner can read the routing and account numbers…Eventually, they went and bought some tape and the dude reported he called the bank again so he could verify what they’d already told him, and they were going to take it there.
Saw one of the three people on this planet I have some zero use for today…I saw him at the entrance and turned the other way hoping he was here to buy something and not bother me, but he made his way to the desk and I was the only one actually standing at the register and the best way to get him out of my hair quickly was to serve him…He wanted to return a box of light bulbs that were broken…All right…He then went to the light bulb section to get a replacement box and usually you wait for the person to come back but I did everything while he was gone, easy enough since he was getting an identical box…I scanned the broken light bulbs for the return, then scanned them again for the exchange because the barcode is identical and I even forged his signature and when he came back all I had to do was hand him his new receipt and tell him to have a good day even tho I didn’t really care if he had a good day or not…If, at the appropriate time, I was given a choice between heaven and hell I’d first ask where he was…The other two people I have no use for are lazy sports officials in another city.
Very early on in the shift, I bought a jar of peanuts for thru the day snacking in the breakroom…I had them at the service desk until I needed them and Mic asked if I was going to share them with him…I told him no, of course not, there were currently no plans to share my peanuts – dry roasted and salted – with him…We really shouldn’t be eating at the service desk, anyway, I told him and, besides, I didn’t really like him, which is untrue and made Mic laugh…Mic said he liked to eat peanuts, especially when they were dry roasted and salted, because they made him thirsty, which reminded him to drink his water…I told him with a straight face that I couldn’t really care less if he died of dehydration which was funny because, as noted, English is Mic’s seventh or eighth language and he may not have completely understood the dehydration concept.
I got recognized today too!!!…This is always good for morale…The service desk is right near the entrance and I happened to be facing it when this older gentleman walks in and grabs a cart, which a lot of people up here call a buggy…I said good morning and he did too, then he calls me by name and asks if I am running for office again this year!!!…I am not making that up!!!..Sparrow, recognized by the electorate!!!…I told him yes, that a couple weekends ago I’d earned the Minor Party nomination for Congress and he smiled and said that’s good…Few know this, however, because the papers in the district all ignored the media release I sent out on the matter the day I was nominated, in plenty of time for the next day’s papers.
Got to Hotel A for the start of the week working graveyards 40 minutes early…Nicole was working and she is fun to talk with…She likes poetry and even does some writing…She also whined about her roommates, who are currently out of favor for a variety of reasons which don’t need to be sensationalized here.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 10:30 Thursday night to 6:30 Friday morning…I needed more sleep, frankly…I fought the alarm, which went off at 6am, hitting the snooze button three times.
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 18th century British novel of the same name.
