Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Thursday, April 2
Winter simply is not ending…I’m not complaining…It is still better than the extreme heat.
It started earlier than usual in October, or at least I think it did, and today we got what would’ve been considered good dumping in January, at least three inches here at The Shire and maybe even five…It was snowing so much I canceled my morning walk and my usual Thursday trip to the next county…Part of me thought a walk in the snow would be invigorating – Lord knows I have warm enough clothes – but yours truly doesn’t need to go slipping and breaking a hip or catching pneumonia or anything…There was really nothing pressing to buy at the retailer, either, and the Mexican joint will still be there…Thank God I lost the Friday shift at the hotel and can now attend to these vital matters Saturday when I no longer have to sleep all day.
I had a modest list made up: some Brylcreem, some donut shop knockoff coffee, peanut butter, some bread and, hopefully, some that sandwich spread that has Satan on the label…Recall they were out last time I went and I settled for experimenting with 50 cent cans of what was labeled as Potted Meat, which turned out to be OK but hardly as good as the Satan Spread…Now, 50 cents a can is about a buck-ten less than Satan Spread, but when you are obliged to take sandwiches as seriously as I am now obliged to take them, you’re willing to for over an extra dollar or so per sandwich, even in this economy.
This is reminiscent of the old bachelor days when I ate macaroni and cheese every night…I always copped an attitude and snobbishly forked over for the leading national brand (LNB) which back then went for around 65 cents a box…The only time I would slum and get the 25-cents-a-box house brand was when the end of the month rolled around and four meals for a dollar sounded good…You were really sacrificing then, too, because fans of the era may – or they may not – recall house brands weren’t all that good back then…And I would like the record to show that ol’ Sparrow never – and never means not once – double-slummed for the ten-cent packages of ramen, some of the most disgusting food our species has managed to come up with.
The cat and I passed a very pleasant day together…After morning project work was done we went to the couch for some reading and then it was time for more project work and then more reading….Neither of us left the house, I left the accumulated snow on the new ride for tomorrow.
The big news is I completed the census…I’ve been looking to do it for a while but I never got a packet in the mail…Some research showed the census people only send packages to actual addresses and we do not get home delivery here in our small town…(The story is the post office wanted to, but part of the deal is residents are responsible for keeping access to the mailbox clear and that can be a pain in the ass in winter, so everyone compromised and we get complimentary post offices boxes out of the deal.)…I’ve also heard that temporary census workers had started delivering packets but only delivered to a portion of residences here before being shut down.
So I filled it out online…I didn’t, of course, have the 12-digit number because I didn’t get a packet, but that was of zero consequence and in a matter of minutes I had done my civic duty…I dearly enjoy doing my civic duty – be it the census or jury duty – and afterward I sat at my desk, contentedly and with coffee, for a few minutes…Idly, I wondered where I would be filling out the next census tho let’s not kid ourselves, there is a high level of probability it will be here at The Shire.
This is the fourth census I’ve filled out as an adult…In 2010 and 2000 I was in Sin City and in 1990 in a town in the southern California desert…Not for the first time, I told the government I live alone, tho I was able to report I’m a homeowner now instead of a renter.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1600 Wednesday until 0130 Thursday…9.5 hours for the day and 27.5 hours for the week, a lusty total three days into the sleep week…I slept great, too, only getting up to use the can once and slept deep and dreamt vividly…One hell of a rest.
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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