Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Wednesday, June 20
I clocked out a half-hour late again at Hotel B, but this time I was actually working…GM Adam showed up a bit before 0700, right on time.
I knew the call would be trouble from the start…You sense things after enough time in any business, and I sensed it here…The lady first called about 0530 wanting to confirm a reservation her boss theoretically made for her…Didn’t have one…Not in her name, not in her bosses name, not in the company’s name and it wasn’t for this day next month either, which sometimes happens, too…She insisted someone made a reservation for her but I can’t shit reservations…We don’t have one…I’m sorry…I encouraged her to contact her boss and to make sure they had the right hotel…About an hour she calls back and with a pleased tone in her voice and insists she has the right hotel…I offered apologies, again, and said we still did not have a reservation for her…She sounded sad when we rang off.
A bit before 0700 the phone rings…I look at it crossly because I know…GM Adam is dealing with an irate guest so I sort of have to answer it even tho it’s time to go home…It’s a different lady, from the company we don’t have reservations for…She needs rooms for tonight, and she actually needs ten beds for three nights…I do some checking and we can accommodate nine people in assorted rooms for tonight and five for Thursday night and zero for Friday night.
I almost get out of it when her rugrat gets up and needs attention, but she decided against calling back…I did tell her if she is certain she made reservations she probably made them at another hotel but she is determined…I end up making six different reservations and they’re different room types so while I can duplicate a couple of them, I can’t duplicate all of them and the whole imbroglio takes over 20 minutes to sort out.
Driving home was like driving thru a wild animal park…There were two instances of deer…The first instance could have caused real problems because there were two cars coming the other way and the second car was going very fast and had to swerve to avoid hitting the car in front…I saw them – a family of three – in plenty of time to slow down but you’ve got to be careful because they change direction whenever the hell they want and it is not uncommon to see a deer heading off the road suddenly decide to go back the other way…The second instance was even closer for ol’ Sparrow, but I saw them darting across the in enough time to brake and miss them….You always have to watch out for deer here, every day, all year long…You never know…You’re not likely to hit them, but you could, so you drive at a safe speed, slowing down at night, and you always look ten to 15 seconds ahead.
Then, near the entrance to the canyon, there was a family of ducks, with one duck leading some baby ducks across the road…Good thing I pay attention, always looking at least ten seconds ahead and even then they’re so small at distance you might not see them until you’re right on top of them…But no animals were harmed on Sparrow’s drive home.
Boy, that weed killer I put on hasn’t done squat yet…I did a tour of The Shire this afternoon and it is still a weed infested mess…I’m going to be patient tho, and hopefully there will be some results Sunday when I get back from the convention.
I spent most of my shift at the retailer manning my treasured Aisle 5 because everybody and their mother is training at the service desk right now and I had to have set a Personal Best in the Most Scrunchled Up Bills Handled In One Shift…Good gravy, everyone was digging bills out of their pockets, the bottoms of their purses, you name it and I spent no small amount of time unfolding and creasing them…This also blows because cash is pretty dirty and who knows where wadded up bills have been.
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Sparrow’s Sleep Log: Usually there isn’t any sleep to report but today there is!!!: 0845 until 1615, 7.5 hours, and good hours, too, because I took a melatonin beforehand…I needed as much sleep as I could get today because I had the retailer at 1800 and I am pulling out Thursday morning at 0500 for the convention, so a full night’s sleep was out.
For the record, our cabin does not have air conditioning, but it so well insulated you never really need it.
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.
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