Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Thursday, April 5
The big decision today was Vitalis/Brylcreem.
I used to shave my head, but about a year ago, more or less, I started letting it grow out…Long-time readers of this crap know when I did have hair there wasn’t a whole lot on top…There still isn’t, but I was tired of the bald look and there is still enough on top to require some effort to make look good.
Anyway, for the longest time I put Brylcreem exclusively in my hair…It’s what Dad used and I used it from time to time, too when I was younger…A few weeks ago, simply because I’m a complete maniac, I picked up some Vitalis…I was curious…I had no complaints with Brylcreem and I felt somewhat guilty because they’re right next to each other at the store and I could feel the Brylcreem box glaring at me.
I was intrigued by their differences, tho…Brylcreem, as you might guess, is a cream and provides really good hold, even when I’m working a double and it even survives hat usage…Vitalis is a liquid and is almost as good…The big difference I noticed is the hold doesn’t last as long Brylcreem’s does…It will get you through a regular day, but on the really long ones it will wear out…But for today – wash and go and out the door for a day’s work – Vitalis is great…It holds up to the hat and my hair looks sharp all day.
Woke up to the (new) alarm clock today, for the first time in a while…Despite the odd hours I am keeping right now and despite the fact I work an awful lot I am pleased to report I seldom need an alarm clock, which is good…I like my sleep and take care to get as much as I can…When I worked dayshift at the timeshare the alarm went off at 5 every morning so this is much better for morale, even if I do work graveyard five nights a week.
Anyway, the alarm clock is new!!!…I am not making that up!!!…The old alarm clock, which I stole from Mom’s house three years ago after she died, had a couple of intolerable flaws…One, it was one of those clocks where daylight savings time was already programmed in for the next thousand years and the dates of DST changed so it was always a week off…It sprung forward a week later and fell back a week sooner…Or maybe it was the other way around…I forget.
The other flaw that signed its death warrant was one of the buttons that moved the time broke…There were two of these buttons, one forward and one backward and these were NOT buttons for the hours and minutes so moving the alarm involved pressing the forward or backwards buttons and moving both hours and minutes at the same time…The backward button is the one that broke so if I needed to change the alarm from 7am to 9pm I had scroll all the forward, past noon, till I got to the desired time…This easily added 30-40 seconds (I timed it) to the alarm clock changing evolution.
The new alarm clock is rather modest – was not in the mood to spend top dollar here – but it does have seperate hour and minute buttons for changing the time and the alarm, so it only takes a few seconds to change the alarm even if the button only goes forward…It also has a port for charging your phone, tho I’ve learned it’s best to keep my phone in the office.
Customer of the Day at the service desk was this older gentleman who returned one of those 85-roll packages of toilet paper…He said it was evil single ply which he picked up inadvertantly because his ass has always demanded double ply…I wanted to tell him, you know, fold it over for Pete’s sake, but I didn’t want to seem too interested in the matter so I processed the return without making a fuss.
Return policies are pretty liberal here…Sometimes you have to say no when it’s plain they went through their attack looking for old radios and toasters and stuff, but there are times when I’ll take something when if it was my store I wouldn’t…I’ve taken a stand, tho…If you do not have a receipt and your refund is more than a few bucks you’re getting a gift card and not cash…Sorry…You want to return a used portable heater without a receipt because you broke it, you ain’t getting cash from ol’ Sparrow…Tough noogies.
You do feel empathy from time to time, though, because it’s the end of the month and it is plain they are returning things because they need the money…Sometimes they’re even unused with a receipt…Sometimes not, tho…One time I remember a guy came thru with all these used items…Clocks, utensils, clothing, it looked like he had just robbed a yard sale…He was young, and I’ve seen enough people short of money over the years to know he could use some cash…He was disheveled, hs clothes were dirty, he had the look: I need help…I felt sorry for him, and I stretched a policy here and there to return a few bucks worth of stuff, which I gave him cash for, but for most of it I was obliged to issue apologies and tell him no…Later I saw him in a checkout lane with some pasta and some canned sauce which he was probably able to get because of the few bucks I was able to refund him.
Sparrow Sleep Log: 9:30 Wednesday night to 6:00 Thursday morning, a solid 9.5 hours, exactly what I needed…I know all of you are looking forward to the weekly totals as much as I am.
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.
The Diary of a Nobody was inspired by the 18th century British novel of the same name.
