Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Monday, April 16
Filled out new W4 forms at both jobs recently…The Wife did, too, at the retailer because we are really taking it in the shorts at tax time, always owing money because not enough was taken out of our checks…This really frustrates The Wife because we’re homeowners and she thinks all homeowners get millions of dollars back every year, but long-time readers of this crap will recall we got a sweet deal on The Shire and our mortgage and its interest isn’t all that high.
It was pretty easy to do at the retailer, I did it online, with help from Connie, in a couple of minutes, but at the hotels, which are under the same owner, it took a week or so…I emailed the owners kid, who seems to be our contact for stuff like this, and she ended up emailing their controller who emailed Hotel A with a W4 attached and Becky printed it out and gave it to her daughter Kathy for delivery to ol’ Sparrow when Kathy reported for duty at Hotel B one morning last week…Of course, I couldn’t be bothered to fill it out then and I couldn’t find it today, obliging me to go to Hotel A this morning, print it out, fill it in and then scan and email to the controller.
Kathy always asks me if my night went smoothly when she comes in…She always sounds suspicious, too, as if she is secretly dreading problems that she would have to attend to being brought to her attention.
As it was, there was a folio was a complete fiasco, tho I had taken care of it…What happened the guest in 207 came to check out and instead of merely hitting the checkout button the new guy Jess did a lot of other entries…Evidently, the guest had a complaint or two because there were refunds and adjustments and reversals – the usual stuff you get when a new guy doesn’t really know what in the hell is going on – and his folio showed him a couple hundred dollars, which we didn’t…It was in such disarray even I couldn’t figure it out and I’m not a complete idiot in these matters so I called tech support and they told me how to take care of it…Some taxes needed some minute adjustments and we moved all the crap to another folio so there was only his payment and the room charges on the main folio and when it was all said and done we had to refund is credit card $5.
My current read is The Chinese by Alan Peyrefitte, which is translated from the original French…I’ve always found China and the Chinese intriguing and while the book is old – Chairman Mao is still alive – it has the insights into our human experience that make reading so much fun.
What was really interesting to read was the section on acupuncture, particularly when used as an anesthetic in surgery…The author actually viewed an operation or two where acupuncture is used and, like a lot of things in life, success in acupuncture seems to involve having a positive approach to the matter…Doctor and patient discuss the matter at length beforehand and they continue to chat during the operation because you are still conscious and if you’re chatting up a storm while your gallbladder is being removed your mind is occupied and less likely to focus on the pain of an organ being removed from inside you…This seems to be theory physiologically, too…They stick needles into you at strategic points and there is some discomfort, which immediately grabs the attention of your nervous system, which then distracts it from the discomfort of the operation.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 9-ish Monday morning until 5 Monday afternoon…Unlimited sleep today since I didn’t have the retailer and there wasn’t an alarm clock and I gotta be honest, I took a sleep aid, a gelcap designed for the purpose…9-ish the official go-to-sleep time but who knows???…Some who work graveyards stay up for a while and go to bed later in the morning, but I’ve worked graveyard a lot over my working life and I’ve always turned in as soon as I got home…I do some reading first and am usually nodding off in short order and sometimes I look at the clock to note the time and sometimes I don’t…Apologies are issued.
Either way, the cat was up on the bed as soon as I stirred, her usual campaign for her canned yummies officially underway which I resisted because there had been a yummy ration issued when I got home…Look, we can’t give the cat canned yummies whenever the hell she wants them…She’s spoiled enough, what with not having to go and earn and living and whatnot – we don’t charge her room or board – and I only give her yummies once a day.
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 18th century British novel of the same name.
