It’s Read Free Sunday (RFS) at The Diary.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, February 19
Amy didn’t have squat ready for me when yours truly reported for duty at the hotel…She claimed to be “busy” as an excuse for ol’ Sparrow being obliged to make his own coffee and get his own ice water pitcher….Not only that, morning coffee service (MCS) was still out, too despite the fact it was late at nite and nobody except me would be drinking coffee, at least until the morning.
(The big MCS news, by the by, is that, finally, we have some lids again…Recall last week we ran out, with ol’ Sparrow being reduced to telling guests we were unable to provide lids today…They’re not the black ones we’re used to, – they’re white, almost clear – but they fit and will keep your morning joe from spilling all over you on your way to the job site.)
A bit after the bar closed I hear some shuffling out front and no one rings the bell so it’s ignored but then some chick shows up in the back office…Well, the assault from a fortnite ago is still fresh in everyone’s mind, of course, so I immediately prepared to go banshee warrior on her, but she was not there to menace ol’ Sparrow, but to ask him to open the restaurant door so she could look for her car key…This was done, but it’s unknown if she ever found them.
At about 0200 a Jamaican guy comes up and rings the bell, looking to buy a box of pizza and some Oreos…I pursed my lips, stroked my chin, and nod approvingly, noting that’s some solid early-morning food…He shrugged and said yeah, everything in this town is closed, even Taco Bell, noting he was “ready to eat soft taco” if absolutely necessary, making it sound like it would’ve been a supreme sacrifice…Denied that, he asked about the pizzas, were they any good???…He rolled with the two-pack of cheese pizzas, and yours truly told him while they probably weren’t Pizza of the Year, they were probably better than a Taco Bell soft taco.
At first, it appeared we finally got some proper shredder bags in stock because there were filled shredder bags with shredded paper in them in the back office storeroom…This is good because regular readers of this crap know we’ve been emptying the shredder bin in those large 33-gallon trash bags and because those really can’t be filled up twice, most of the bag is left unused…Proper shredder bags would eliminate this needless waste, of course, a big win for the environment.
The problem, tho, turned out to be the new shredder bags were, hardly for the first time, too small…They don’t fit in the bin at all – they’re more appropriate for something shredding business cards – which means someone has been manually emptying the bin into the small bag and you don’t have to be Mr Office Max to realize this would be a pain in the arse…So ol’ Sparrow used the shredder as normal and if no one gets to it first, he’ll empty the bin in a 33-gallon trash bag as needed.
Then this nitwit comes to the front desk and mutters like a milquetoast:
– Anybody back there???
Christ…One of those…Regular readers of this crap know this was ignored…Ring the bell.
– Hello???
By now yours truly is on the phone calling the local priest to come and administer last rites because this guy is about to die…Eventually, tho, I head out…He’s a guest who needs service and there’s no reason to be petulant about it; I am here to serve him…I do, tho, point out the bell after saying good morning.
– I don’t like ringing bells…
His tone made it sound like it was official government policy or something…Well, there’s no use bickering here…This guy is tedious and selfish, hellbent on getting his way, and there’s no reason to leave a bad taste in his mouth, even tho he’s an ass…Ol’ Sparrow throws up the white flag.
– Very well…How may I be of service???
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1000 Saturday until 1500 Saturday…5.0 hours for the week and – read this and weep – a Sleep Log record (SLR) 54.0 for the week…This breaks the old mark by a half-hour.
Like you may be, ol’ Sparrow was somewhat surprised the mark was completely obliterated because he was rather tired when he went down, but after waking up from a dream at 1500 the bed that’s enuff sleep for you and threw me out…Still tho, a weekly PB is nothing to sneeze at; 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.
