Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Tuesday, January 7
Busy tonight…It’s Texas Week, as noted, and they stay out late and get up at odd hours to buy stuff…And they need to put SIM cards in their new phones.
I am not making that up…It’s about 0100 and this kid comes in and asks for a paperclip…Sure, we have lots of those and even tho he doesn’t appear to have an immediate need to secure documents, maybe he’s got some late-night paperwork to catch up on.
Anyway, I produce one and he pulls two cell phones out of a pocket…One has a shattered face and the other appears to be rather new…He starts trying to open the new one.
I bought this off of some guy today…My other one broke.
I nodded knowingly…I didn’t mention that even tho we’re a smallish town, we do have cell phone stores, and like you probably are, I was wondering exactly how you buy a cell phone “off of some guy” and I watched him fiddle around for a bit…It was plain the paperclip was too big, so I went and got a push pin from the bulletin board (now called a corkboard not that this makes me feel old) and that did the trick…Then, with a practiced hand, he opened his old phone and pulled out a thingy that had a chip in it, which he removed…He wasn’t entirely certain how to proceed and then he looked at me but even in his drunken state, he could tell I would be no help and eventually he figured it out for himself.
We’ve already made our nut for the month and, actually, we made it the night of the 3rd, apologies are issued for not noticing it earlier.
Lots of phone calls…No, we don’t have any rooms and more than one caller wondered what the deal was, hardly an unreasonable question for a Monday night…Rather than explain, I just said it was one of those nights and apologized…And there were the usual calls for ground transportation…Most had a good attitude, tho one dickhead made it seem the only reason I was put on this planet was to get him to the hotel right now.
Sir, I’m sorry, I do not have transportation to offer…
Sometimes you have to say no…even the 5-star joints do it, as I once had the Beverly Hills Hotel tell me the complimentary hotel limo was unavailable.
At 0330 another Texan wanders in…He forgot his room key and after verifying he’s entitled admittance to 133, I issue him a key and he wanders off…A couple of minutes later I get a phone call:
Can you come to 133, please???
Of course, I can, tho I’m wondering what the deal is…Maybe his key doesn’t work or – nightmare of nightmares – maybe the latch was put on and he can’t get in…I head down and it is the nightmare of nightmares…His girlfriend had, in fact, set the latch…Fuck…We have a tool for this but I’ve never field-tested it nor seen it in action…Double fuck…So I head back to the front desk and before heading back with the tool I watch a couple of instructional videos I found online…They made it look easy…I didn’t expect it to be easy, but I made a mental note of the principles involved…I won’t bore you with the details.
Sometimes luck is with you and sometimes luck is not with you…Tonight, it wasn’t…I fiddled with it for over a half-hour and nothing…The guy was drunk enuff to want to be useful and he kept mumbling things in Texan to me which I didn’t understand and he kept sticking his nose in insisting on helping.
The girlfriend is a sound sleeper, too…I rang her room from the nearby maintenance office several times and nothing…Two men were, literally, trying to break into her room and nothing…At 0415 I told the guy I was sorry but there isn’t much I can do anymore…I have duties coming up and while were sold out, he could sit in the lobby…Luke should be in in an hour or so and maybe he can make it work…He followed me back to the lobby and was asleep in a chair soon enuff…He snored, too, very loudly, and I figured either his girlfriend had set the latch so she could get a decent night’s sleep without him or she was so immune to it nothing could wake her up…Eventually, Luke was able to open it.
And the Christmas tree is still up…And the holiday music is still playing…So apparently the three wise men got sidetracked on their way to come to take the tree down and change the music CD…With Epiphany come and gone, maybe it will be left for St Valentine or the Easter bunny.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1230 Tuesday until 2130 Tuesday…9.0 hours…I really can’t complain about 9.0 hours, especially since I will not get back to bed until Wednesday evening, but not getting to sleep until early afternoon meant, of course, I missed workout, but a good night’s sleep is as beneficial as a workout so, officially, I am not complaining.
The cat, again, would not stop whining for a canned yummy ration when I woke up…Yesterday, recall, I was strong and did not cave in but tonight I did…After all, I won’t be home until Wednesday after the VSO…Sue me.
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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