Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Monday, May 21
I woke up this afternoon to The Wife doing some deep cleaning of The Shire with her friend Erin…She had warned me this might happen when I’d gone to sleep this morning and when I woke up the doors and windows were open and they were about three-quarters done…They had done all this without waking ol’ Sparrow up, too, which I am grateful for…Of course, I had taken precautions…The sanctity of Sparrow’s Sleep Log demanded that and I had closed the door and I always sleep with earplugs anyway, so it wasn’t a surprise I slept through it.
The Wife and I did do some spring cleaning earlier this year but – and this is not the Upset of the Year – there is only so much hardcore, full tilt boogie cleaning you can accomplish with ol’ Sparrow…It is simply not anything that interests me or that I have an aptitude for…Sure, I can putz around and be of some modest value, but the problem is I always need direction…If I do not have a task – and if I do not like that task – I tend to stand around doing nothing…The Wife, of course, realizes this and makes allowances.
By chance, all my toiletries ran out at the same time, so I did some shopping before this evening’s shift at the retailer…Here was the haul: shampoo, the men’s shampoo that washes that gray right out of my hair…As noted, I do not have much hair up top and I can handle that, and the gray wasn’t too bad and individually both offer a rather distinguished look but taken together both are a bit more distinction than I’m looking for…Also in the Hair Care category, I needed both Vitalis and Brylcreem…Recall this is my first container of Vitalis, so it was up for renewal and I decided to get both…Vitalis is good for routine use…Brylcreem offers better hold for the really long or important days, of course, but Vitalis is less messy (I don’t have to wash my hands after application, a rinse suffices) and is perfect for routine, wash-and-go use…I feel kinda bad for Brylcreem because I’ve been using it off and on since I was a kid, but it is still in rotation and when I start making appearances a Congressional candidate later this year it will be what’s used.
I switched up the toothpaste, too, going with Complete Care instead of Sensitive Gums, though I stuck with the stick deodorant for the second consecutive time.
Boy, we were really well staffed at the retailer tonight…There was me, Anacinth, Customer Service Sam and Daniel at the service desk and there are only three registers and there were more than enough cashiers so there was no point manning a register…One good thing is they don’t send anybody home when this happens but as noted, you gotta look busy or else they will find something for you to do…As it was, others went and looked busy elsewhere – probably the break room – leaving me to help at the desk, tho there was only a trickle of customers all night.
The only time I was actually useful came in the middle of the shift when a young lady came in to get some things her mom had left behind…I had talked to mom almost as soon as I reported for duty at 1800…We are ruthlessly efficient at the service desk and some of her stuff had already been in the go-back bins and some had already been returned to the shelves because they were no longer in the bins…This presented a problem because the only descriptions we had were on the receipt and the descriptions mom texted to the girl…Some were easy, liked the baked beans and collapsible bins, but some was gibberish and the girl called mom a couple of times and we never did the two things of gum on the receipt, so I issued the girl a refund for those, six bucks and change wisely put on her debit card.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0930 Sunday until 1500…I trust all of you have adapted to the 24-hour clock, also known as military time…Five-and-a-half hours isn’t all that much, but recall I’d slept a lot Saturday and was all caught up.
Some of you might – or you might not – be wondering if I sleep with the window open during the day, like I sometimes do the two times I sleep nights…Generally not…One thing we noticed when we were considering buying The Shire in 2014 was how well insulated it was…We first looked at it in summer and it was not but the cabin was cool and it is actually cooler to leave the windows closed when it gets above 70F.
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 19th century British novel of the same name.
Read Gaylon’s latest: We The People: Making America America Again at www.GaylonKent.com
