Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Monday, September 16
There was a guy sitting in the far part of the lobby, where the TV is, until 0200 this morning a the hotel…He had his laptop and was working his phone, too, so I guess he was swinging deals in Finland or something because he looked busy…About midnight he comes to the front desk and makes a noise that sounded like part belch, part spoken word…I barely heard it and I wanted to make him wait, but the sooner I got out and dealt with him the sooner I could get back to work.
I get out there and he asked if I could watch his stuff for a bit…Sure, I thought, I love standing guard over electronic gear in hotel lobbies…Lord knows I have nothing better to do…I hadn’t actually responded yet when he made a counteroffer:
Or, you can make me a cup of coffee…
Well, that’s exciting, too, of course, and by chance, I had made a fresh pot before clocking in, so I said I would be delighted to pour him a cup…I didn’t tell him the alternative was to smack him around for annoying me.
At 0230 114 called asking if there was an ER or urgent care in the area…Of course, there is…We’re not some backwater hick town…In fact, we have both an ER and an urgent care – the urgent care sends us really cheap goodies like pens and flashlights, neither of which work very well, every now and then – and I asked which one he preferred and he said the ER.
Actually, the first thing I asked him was if he needed an ambulance, a silly question because if he needed one he wouldn’t have been talking like he was reading a weather report, but I always ask anyway, in case they’re shy and need a little nudging.
For the first time, there were no emails and no phone messages waiting for me at the Veteran Service Office (VSO)…I was bothered soon enough, tho, by a fax from Corky, who was sharing his latest missive from the VA…There are still problems with his claim to get his wife listed as a dependent, which would give him a few extra bucks every month…Now, to their credit, the VA accepted their marriage certificate as proof they were married – no small matter when dealing with the VA – but they wanted paperwork on the dissolution of his previous two marriages…Regular readers of this crap may – or they may not – remember we had already sent in the information the VA wants a week or so ago, and I reassured Corky the VA merely haven’t received it yet.
Fellow post member Doc stopped by, too…Doc is doing biographies on post members and it was my turn to be interviewed…I enjoy being interviewed, I’ve got to be honest, having done so in the past while running for the US House and Senate, and Doc and I chatted for a good 45 minutes or so…He had a lot of technical questions about submarines, most of which I was still able to answer, tho I had to be honest and tell him I had no memory of the first time the boat dove with me in it…I told him it was a lot of work and a lot of fun, as boats tended to draw funny (re: sarcastic and cynical) people.
I started using the new appointment book I bought last week at the retailer in the next county…I usually get a new one for the year at the June Legion state convention but I didn’t go to the Legion state convention this year, and last years only goes thru September…The new one is a bit bigger, and it’s spiral bound so Wednesday entries could be problematic, but after two days of noting the day’s sleep yours truly is giving it solid, if not great, marks…Also, unlike the monthly calendar, it also has weekly pages as well…I only use the monthly calendar and neither approve of nor need the weekly pages, but I wasn’t overburdened with options here.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1430 Monday until 2130 Monday…7.0 hours for the day and 19.0 hours for the week…This is a bit more sleep than I get on Mondays, and I am already fretting about whether or not it will hamper getting to sleep Tuesday morning.
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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