Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Sunday, May 27
About 0200 or so I’m farting around at Hotel A when Riley walks in…Riley is a maid at Hotel B and her sister is the GM here at Hotel A…She is also the mother of the gorgeous baby girl I saw Friday night…Seems she and her daughter had just driven back from the big city and she had neither the gas to get to their home in the next county – about an hour away from Hotel A – nor did she have the money to purchase gas…She was contrite and scared and had no idea what to do…She did let it be known she would not dismiss out of hand the prospect of staying here for the night, probably because that was the only solution she could think of.
Crap, we were sold out…I had no place to put her…The very best solution to the problem was for me to give her my debit card and go across the street and get some gas…So I fished it out, jotted down the PIN and gave it to her…Of course, the mind reels in this situation, with my debit card soon being linked to a nationwide crime spree and whatnot, but Riley came back soon enough and even brought the receipt, so it all worked out.
A bit earlier we had a gentleman come in claiming he had a reservation for the night…Oh heck, this was trouble because not only were we sold out, everyone was in, too…He showed me his phone, which had just finished providing instructions to our fine establishment, but this didn’t really prove anything one way or the other, so I asked if he had an email showing the actual reservation…He taps his phone a couple of times and then his shoulders slump…He did have a reservation, but it was for Tuesday night, not tonight.
This happens every now and then, usually when some wizard at a home office somewhere screws up, but this guy had made his reservation himself, and he noted his car could be pretty comfortable at need and he asked if I would cancel his Tuesday reservation for him.
Our post’s Memorial Day ceremony is tomorrow, of course, and while my weight loss program – wasn’t a complete success, at least I didn’t do any damage…My old navy dress blues fit, goddammit, don’t doubt that, and when I tried them on when I got them back from the cleaners they fit a better than I remember them fitting last year….Good…I’ve been careful about what I eat the past couple-three weeks…I’ve been avoiding the convenience store crap, especially right after work, and it has paid modest dividends, and I’ve even lost a notch on my belt.
The lawn still looks like crap…About a fifth mowed and the rest unmowed thanks to the mower breaking down…I don’t know what the hell neighbor Jerry is doing this weekend, but he’s not milling about his garage waiting for me to ask him to do my lawn with his fancy pants rider mower…Fine…I’ll wait until my mower gets returned from the shop.
I went to the retailer tonight for what I thought was a scheduled shift but I tried to clock in and the time clock told me I wasn’t scheduled…Crap…A wasted trip into town and I don’t know whether I read the schedule wrong online or whether they changed it on me nor, honestly, will I spend an awful lot of time looking into it.
Since I was at the retailer, tho, there was no reason not to pick up some bird seed…We are out and with The Wife out of town you might think I’d take the opportunity to get the cheap bird seed I like but I didn’t…I got the fancy-pants bird seed The Wife bought a couple of weeks ago, the kind with the special black seeds slathered in oils blessed by Tibetan monks.
Just for funsies, tho, I called The Wife asking if I had permission to spend the extra few bucks for the premium stuff or whether in a stunning act of fiscal conservancy I should get the 20-lbs for $6 bird seed…She laughed and said yes, the acquisition of premium bird seed was authorized and I was surprised at the cost, 40 – yes 40 – pounds was only $17 or so, which is less than I thought…Longtime readers of this crap know The Wife and I pretend to argue about this…She likes the fancy-pants bird seed, I don’t, on the theory that they’re birds they don’t really care, they’re just happy to not have to eat worms but I think The Wife is right about us attracting prettier birds.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Sunday until 1430 Sunday…Slow start to the week…Recall last Sunday I led things off with a whopping eight-and-half hours – which led to the highest weekly total of the month – but I woke up on my own without the alarm that was going to go off in an hour anyway, so we can’t complain.
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
