It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Sunday, April 17
Boy, we were busy tonite…On arrival, Amy advised the Interstate south of here, well south of here, had closed and regular readers of this crap know the detour is long, about 3-4 hours, and goes thru town and there was no shortage of people needing rooms and ol’ Sparrow was fielding phone calls and dealing with walk-ins for a while…The cash drawers didn’t start getting counted until a bit before midnite, but even with the rush the hotel wasn’t even two-thirds full and ol’ Sparrow was back from walking the hotel a bit before 0130, not too bad a time considering.
Of course, these good folks were hungry and the sundry stand did good business and a black market in hotel amenities would’ve done brisk business…As it is, of course, amenities are given away and guests who are spending an unplanned nite on the road need things so they don’t smell like animals in the morning, stuff like toothbrushes and toothpaste, mouthwash and deodorant…After the first two Genius Sparrow brought assorted amenity bins and placed them on the counter, which proved to be a smart move.
At about 0630 this gent comes to checkout and would not leave the front desk; he was one of those who always gave the impression he needed further service…It was kind of funny:
– I’d like to check out.
He hands me the key.
– Of course, sir. How was your stay?
– It was good.
– I’m glad to hear that.
He’d handed me the key packet, so I had his room number and he stood there as if needing something else…Generally, this means they want a receipt but – call it the instincts all the great ones have if you must – I thought there was something more…Still tho:
– May I offer you a receipt???
He shakes his head; he continues to stand there as if he’s expecting to do or say something.
– Well, thank you for staying with us, sir.
That wasn’t the expected response, either.
– And travel safely, today, too.
He wouldn’t budge…You serve enuff people in enuff situations over enuff years you become adroit at handling a variety of circumstances but now I was flummoxed: wishes for safe travels is the last arrow in the arsenal; yours truly had nothing else…Then it was as if a light switch was turned on and he remembered what he wanted: the best way to drive to the big city.
Brunch at the restaurant was really good…After Tammy relieved me I decided to go to the gym for a soak was too much work and it was cold and snowing out so a walk was out, too, so yours truly hung out in the lobby doing project work, and I was on time for my 0900 reservation…The chef had come in at his usual 0600, too soon to have prime rib ready at 0900, so perhaps it had already been made and stored in the walk-in cooler and merely needed to be heated up…This, tho, would be a bulletin because the walk-in cooler is checked nightly for chicken finger access (sometimes yes, usually no) and prime rib wasn’t spotted, but I wasn’t looking all that closely.
As prime ribs go, this was pretty solid…It had the nice, well-done edge yours truly favors and came with some sort of cheesy potatoes that were top-shelf and the asparagus was, appropriately, ignored.
I’ll tell you what, tho yours truly is currently a heathen for whom Easter means nothing, I’d support monthly Easters if it means a prime rib brunch…Especially since it was at no cost to ol’ Sparrow…I am not making that up…Since I had worked graveyard, Veronika gave me the half-off discount, instead of the usual 25% off, and I still had my gift card from the holiday party, so the only cost to ol’ Sparrow was a cash gratuity.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1530 Sunday until 2130 Sunday…6.0 hours for the day, a pretty standard start to the sleep week when there was half a day of sleep on Saturday…We’ll take it.
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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.
Gaylon’s books can also be found at The Reading Salon.
