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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Friday, November 2
I voted today.
I had a 1330 shift at the retailer and I went in early so I could stop by the courthouse and vote because I still enjoy standing in a voting booth to cast my ballot…We don’t have a US Senate race this year, so my Congressional race was the top of the ticket, the first one on the ballot, and, per protocol, I took a few seconds to stare at my name…I know I am not the odds-on favorite for anything but third place, but not everybody that wants to makes it on the ballot for Congressman…Look what I did, not bad and all that:
Representative to the 116th United States Congress
R. S. Sparrow, Minor Party
I also wrote The Wife in for county commissioner, just for funsies, because I didn’t really like any of the candidates and there wasn’t anybody running for county surveyor, so I wrote in the realtor we worked with when we bought The Shire.
As I was heading out the door I noticed two new tires on the porch…Further inspection showed them to be snow tires, the ones I had originally ordered from the retailer last week…Regular readers of this crap may – or they may not – recall I had ordered them and then gotten the delivery date mixed up, it being later than we needed for The Wife’s car…So I ordered some from a tire shop in town and requested cancellation on the retailer’s tires, a request that was, obviously, denied…So I threw them in the car and returned them on my first break.
Because the tire fiasco threw me off so much I forgot my backpack…It has my laptop and other things vital for killing time on graveyards in there…I could have made out without it…Everything’s on the cloud, but that would mean I would have to use the computer at the front desk and heaven forbid I do that when I can sit and stretch my legs at a breakfast table in the lobby…So I drove on my lunch break and was 15 minutes late coming back from lunch.
This really happened:
I was about to head out the door when my phone started vibrating…I don’t usually take unscreened calls, but it was from a town in the district and figuring it was a voter I answered…It was a voter, a woman who greeted with “Shalom” of all things and I thought crap, I’m about to be asked something I am unable to answer cogently, hardly unprecedented in this campaign…I said hi and she said uh, hi, and then asked what was my position on black people?
I am not making that up!!!…A Jew, presumably, asking me my position on black people….Well, there is no graceful way for a public figure to answer this question and any attempt at humor (“I’m pro-black people”) would be completely misunderstood…So would abruptly dismissing her…So I asked her what her name was, noting she had the advantage over me, and she hung up, solving the problem.
Had another voter interaction at the retailer, too…A gentleman we see regularly stopped me and asked if I was running for Congress against the incumbent…Well, him and two others, but I said sure, I was on the ballot…He asked why my position on the Second Amendment was and I said support the Second Amendment without qualification or restriction tho right now I decline to exercise this right…It was plain he hadn’t heard the phrase “qualification or restriction” too much, but he smiled and said he supported it, too…I asked if I’d earned his vote and he tilted his head at me and said he didn’t know yet, but he liked my position on this issue…I gave him a Sparrow for Congress card – from my new wallet – and he thanked me and turned to go.
I’m in the break room for my final break and Mamadou is there and since I’ve helped him with things in the past he comes up and shows a credit card offer he received in the mail…I looked it over and it looked pretty good…It was from American Express and AmEx applications aren’t issued with the rations…The interest rate was lower – of course, I know the interest rate of his Visa card – and I said AmEx is a good company and he asked if I would help him apply for it.
Well, word has obviously the Senegal contingent that I have expanded my already impressive range of financial service offerings to include applying for credit cards…I really just wanted to sit down and fart around on Faceplant for my break, but I took his phone, opened a browser, went to the site and filled out the application for him…Within a minute we had found out he’d been approved.
Mamadou, like the other Senegal men, works two jobs 80 hours a week…He also rustles carts at the supermarket across the plaza…I’ve seen his bank account and he’s got an impressive savings account and a line of credit and now he has an American Express card.
Towards the end this couple and their two kids come in and ask if we have a large container of bubble gum…No, we don’t…We do have packages with several packs in them, but the large tubs you can reach in for a handful we don’t have room for…I apologized to the wife, andlooked at the kids with empathy.
Sorry kids…Blame the old man at the retailer…It’s all my fault…
The wife laughed:
Actually, they’re for my husband…
Slow at Hotel B…Not even half full and we only have 29 rooms…I was ready to slash rates and move product, but nobody called or walked in…Too bad because in this situation the $139 asking price is null and void and you could probably name your price…Nicole was ready to bolt when I showed up, too…It was funny, she had her coat and backpack on and was already clocked out, which was pretty adorable, actually…She did not provide an update on the mice in her house.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0100 Friday until 1000 Friday…Nine more hours, more or less solid, too, because I can only remember getting up to go to the can once, pretty good at my age…Proving that I will whine about absolutely anything, I will note that the 1000 getting up time was a bit later than I wanted…I had a 1330 shift at the retailer and was obliged to rush my treasured morning routine, but if that’s my biggest problem this week I’m doing OK.
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.
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