Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Tuesday, May 15
I actually had a walk-in at Hotel B this morning…I am not making that up…It was 0130 (pronounced zero one thirty) or so and I was already done with the night’s labors and I was about to settle in for some writing when I hear the door open and I check the back office monitor and some loser is standing at the front desk.
I go out and say good morning and he asks if we have a room…Well, of course, we do…It’s a weeknight in the slow season so, yeah, I had about three dozen available…However, I had not bothered to inform myself exactly what types of rooms we had available and at what rates…In some places I’ve worked hotels at, like in Sin City, I would know…I would make sure as soon as I reported for duty how many rooms we had available, what types and how much because it was the Sin City Strip, there would be no shortage of people wandering in.
However, I felt comfortable offering him a rate of $99 without even looking and some checking showed we had the one king bed be wanted…He was one of these who was never happy with the quoted rate, the type who would battle you for every penny…I told him I’d be happy to slash the rate to $89 – which I’m generally prepared to do anyway when it’s slow – and he started yapping about how slow it is and how empty the parking lot was and – and this was classic – he looked at his watch and moaned about how he’d only need it for a few hours.
Well, this is not a by-the-hour motel…It’s a pretty nice franchise hotel and I’m providing free internet and your f*cking breakfast in the morning, too, so don’t even start…I told him, in that relentlessly pleasant way I have, that the rate was $89.
– Including tax???
Oh Jesus, H…No, dorfman, not including tax…Merely to reinforce what a loser he was, I went through the minor hassle of finding out his total would be $101.17 with tax.
Got the lawn today, and I wore the new tan/burnt orange carpenter pants, too…Now, I know I said the old, green carpenter pants would be the go-to pant for yard work but one, I wanted to start breaking them in and, two, I’m not Mr Fashion, but who doesn’t want to show off their new pants?
The lawn was relatively easy this time because it was only half as high as last time, except for the dandelions, of course, which came up to you ears…For easy reference, I’ve divided the lawn into quadrants…Quadrant A runs in front of the front door, fronting Maple Street, from the driveway to the fence that runs parallel to Main Street…Quadrant B is the part between the house and Main Street and there’s some overlap here, of course…There are not any hard and fast boundaries and Quadrant B includes the lawn/rock quarry out between the fence and Main Street.
Quadrant C runs on the side of the house between Main Street and the alley…Quadrant D is the part that runs from the other side of the driveway to the alley and from Maple Street to the fence, where it overlaps with Quadrant C.
I started mowing with Quadrant D today, then went to Quadrant A, then Quadrants B and C…With the overlaps there really wasn’t much left of Quadrant C to do, just the part that is immediately in front of the house, really.
I started right in on the watering, too, even while mowing was still in progress!!!…The lawn needed a good soak and I wanted to get the whole thing in today so I started watering Quadrant D immediately after I mowed it…Then I moved it to Quadrant A and after I was done mowing there was still daylight left, so I did Quadrant B by hand…I have always enjoyed watering a lawn by hand, even when I was a kid…I also got Sector 1 of Quadrant C done by hand and by that time the sun was going down and it was starting to get chilly, so I used the sprinkler for Sector 2 of Quadrant B…For those of you keeping score at home, this would also be Sector 1 of Quadrant D.
The sad news from the garden is we are starting to lose the tulips…They are starting to sag…We have them in a couple-three places and I gave all of them some water but The Wife reminded me they’re a spring flower – the first to make an appearance after the winter cold and the first to go before the heat of summer.
The Wife also said the first comments on our yard are starting to filter in…She works at the retailer, too, of course, and knows everyone and lots of people know where we live and The Shire is right there as you head into town – or out of town, for that matter…They notice the lawn, of course, but the heart garden is right there on Main Street and the first hanging plant is up, too, so there’s a lot to admire as pass by.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Tuesday until 1500 Tuesday…I was hoping for more, frankly, and even took a PM, but six hours was all there was for me today…For some reason, I cannot seem to sleep past 1500, which I know concerns you, too.
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
