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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Tuesday, October 30
Cut out early from Hotel C this morning, around 0230…This is pretty much expected in the night audit training racket…There is no reason for the owner to pay for two people to sit around doing nothing when everything is done and, honestly, there is no reason for me to hang around…But you don’t have to leave too early; you do have a living to earn and the owners realize night auditors, especially two-night a week night auditors, don’t grow on trees, so they don’t specify when you have to leave and I will put the system to work for me tonight when I go the distance…This is both so the ol’ paycheck doesn’t take it in the shorts too badly and because I’m swapping cars with The Wife to get her snow tires put on Wednesday morning.
Both busy and shorthanded at the retailer tonight…Moderately busy and veeeeerryyy shorthanded, actually…We didn’t have a front end supervisor because Sir Thomas called off, probably for one of his patented mental health days, and ol’ Sparrow was working a register and the service desk and doing go-backs.
One lady, more or less my age, came up with her son, buying one of those onesie Halloween costumes that look like pajamas, this one a rooster, of all things…I looked at the costume ($19.99, plus tax) and then at her:
Wow…We didn’t dress up like poultry when we were that age…
She laffed and agreed, adding that if she was going to dress up like a bird she’d probably dress as a peacock.
We were running around so much tonight one of my closing pages was from the Garden Center…This is difficult because you can hear yourself very clearly and if you’ve never done PA announcing be advised hearing yourself while your talking can very easily throw you off…This is the case here, because the speaker is just a few feet over your right shoulder and it sounds like you’re at a rock concert and you really have to concentrate because if you pay too much attention to your voice you’ll end up sounding like a dolt and it takes a lot of concentration to push your voice coming out of the speaker to the back of your mind…Of course, when you’re a professional like me you do this, but even for me it’s an effort.
It’s open enrollment time for health benefits at the retailer and I don’t work enough to qualify for some things, but I did buy some life insurance for The Wife, something I probably should have done years ago…It’s a good size policy, too, more than enough to pay off The Shire with a lot left over, even if I croak tomorrow…It’s with a large, reputable company, too, and is very affordable and The Wife is very pleased that I am thinking about her.
I remember reading, a couple-three times over the years, the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote…It’s the story of the murder of the Clutter family in Kansas around the middle of last century and on the day of his death the man of the house, Herb Clutter, signs a check for a life insurance policy, which causes no small amount of reflection on his part.
Same here…I don’t think about death too often but you buy life insurance for when you die so you sort of have to think about it…I am buying this so The Wife has some financial security when I’m gone…And I’m at the age where, unless I live longer than I really want, I’ve lived more days than I have left…Yay for me, but you do think about when it’s your time to go…I just hope it’s quick, just like Pa Sparrow and Mom…Pa Sparrow was in a home and I was out scoring and I had seven voicemails from Mom when I was heading home…Your dad is ill, I’m going to the home…They’re taking him to the hospital…It’s not looking good…This is your mother, son, your father just died…Longtime readers of this crap may – or they may not – recall Mom dying three-fouor years ago…It was quick, too…She collapsed at the front door and the gardener found her.
I did make sure to point out to The Wife she gets nothing I’m poisoned at the dinner table.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0330 Tuesday until 1200 Tuesday…I knocked off early from night audit training at Hotel C because I could and was in bed nice and early and I slept straight thru and I had some zero clue what to expect when I rolled over to check the clock…Maybe it was one of those deals where you only slept four hours but woke up feeling good or maybe I had slept a full session…As it was, it was a bit before noon and I felt good so I got up and got morning routine going.
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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