Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Friday, July 26
One thing Tim the Adjutant and I discussed yesterday when he stopped by was what in theeee hell was going on at our now-closed diner…Like ol’ Sparrow had, Tim had heard someone had been pretty close to opening something new there…What he didn’t know, like yours truly had heard, was that is was the people who own the restaurant at the hotel who were interested, a tidbit I felt obliged to pass on…As it is, we haven’t seen any movement inside the diner in a month and we both agreed it will probably be a while before anything opens.
Busy day at the Veteran Service Office today, as busy as I’ve been in a month…Corky came by, recall he had called Wednesday because those f*ckers at the VA had sent a letter advising the paperwork he had filed before I took over wasn’t signed even tho Corky said it was…Corky brought the letter in and they had sent him a blank form instead of the one that needed signing, something else that peeved Corky…Also, because Corky felt bad about bothering me, he brought me a donut…I am not allowed to take gratuities or any other form of remuneration from veterans for my services, but rather than insult Corky over this technicality, I accepted the donut, which was chocolate cake with cream filling, one hell of a selection, if you ask me.
I told Corky you can’t fight the VA here, if they say it’s unsigned well, that is that, and he agreed, and it was a simple matter for me to fill out the form for him…I did it in the system, too, so most of his information was already filled in and in about 30 minutes or so it had been sent in..Corky also asked if he could have a copy of his paperwork, which wasn’t a claim, merely a form that updated his dependent status…I said copy, heck, he can have the original…It’s your claim and your paperwork…I did keep copies for myself, tho.
Cleaned my desk today, too…I’m only there 20 hours a week, but things tend to add up and there were no shortage of notes, scrap paper, sandwich crumbs and whatnot lying around and it was getting a bit much…It was still far from reaching the Sparrow Threshold, but the office should be presentable for veterans.
And their widows…Mrs D came by around 1247…She had called earlier and asked if she could come in to talk about her late husband’s disability rating…Of course, she can, tho she really wasn’t clear on what she needed, tho she added she had some letters from the VA to read…One of my few skills is sifting thru a lot of information and finding what is relevant and when you got right down to it the VA had ruled in favor of his appeal, which was in favor of granting him a 10 percent disability for his hearing…The appeal decision was dated this past April, tho because the original claim was filed in 2014, the date of his benefit is June of that year…Her husband died last August.
Still, tho, I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on or what she wanted me to do for her until she pulled out a bank statement that showed a July 1st electronic deposit for about what a 10 percent disability payment would be…Then she showed me some handwritten notes of hers that detailed assorted payments on June 7 totaling several thousand dollars…They were from the same source as the July 1 payment…I did some quick figuring and the several thousand dollars divided by the July 1 payment roughly added up to the number of months between the original award date and the date of her husband’s death…More or less.
Well, our course of action became clear: find out what we could about the payments…The advice from her bank was not to spend the money and I told her, only half-jokingly, withdraw it and see if you get some interest on it…I called Pat, the VSO in a county south of here, but she was with a veteran and couldn’t take my call, but she later called back and said we must inform the VA of her husband’s death and that some of the money likely would have to be paid back.
Got a couple of compliments on the county’s vet services website I maintain and update every day I am in the VSO…It’s funny, because it really doesn’t take that long…For example, today I put the hours I would be in the office and I apologized for any inconvenience me leaving early Wednesday caused…I also put a job listing up: the city is looking for seasonal bus drivers this winter…It pays $18 an hour, which isn’t too bad, plus the city pays for you Class B commercial driver’s license training…Previous entries are left up for people to scroll thru…One comment was regular entries gave the site a personal touch, which I appreciated.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log:
1930 Thursday until 0330 Friday…8.0 hours for night
1930 Friday until 2130 Friday …2.0 hours and lusty 40.5 hours for the week with the Saturday Sleep Session (SSS) still to come.
I’ll tell you what, Friday afternoons are turning into a really nice part of the week…I get home following a tough day at the VSO about 1630 or so and The Wife is never home from work yet and I don’t even bother turning on the computer, I go straight to bed and start reading…Eventually, I’ll start yawning and I’ll turn the light off and roll over and eventually I’ll doze off, getting a nice nap in before heading in for my labors at the hotel…I get some reading in and some sleep and all in all it is very pleasant.
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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