It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Tuesday, June 8
Chris reported he had “something you’re not going to like” when yours truly reported for duty tonite…He made me fret over it for a few minutes, too, until I’d actually reached the front desk and had clocked in.
It wasn’t that big a deal…The wake-up call machine was screwing up and was not actually calling rooms with wake-up calls…This is bad because hotels are liable for paying for rebooked flights when wake-up calls aren’t delivered and we are not going to bother with fretting over why this guy doesn’t have a phone that can produce an alarm; the bottom line was ol’ Sparrow was going to have to deliver the wake-up call live.
Far from not liking this, tho, yours truly was thrilled: he was going to be able to deliver a wake-up call personally!!!…Heck, the only thing not to like about it was the fact there was only one wake-up call to deliver; ideally there would’ve been six or seven, but wake-up calls, along with phone calls made directly from rooms, have dropped considerably in the smartphone era.
(As it was, and rather ironically, we set the alarm on our phone for 0630, to ensure we wouldn’t miss making the wake-up call…Actually, it was set for 0629, so we wouldn’t make the call late.)
There were four people in the lobby drinking beers and yapping when yours truly reported for duty…After a while they started having multiple, simultaneous conversations, which was pretty funny because A was talking with B, C was talking with D, and D – a woman, of course – was also carrying one with both A and B and it was pretty loud there for a while…Yours truly thought the beer might get the best of them and they’d have to be encouraged to call it a nite, but they piped down and found their way to their rooms soon enuff.
A little before midnite 167 came by to check out…All right…The nite audit hadn’t been run yet, so room and tax charges for the nite hadn’t been posted, but sure, you’re scheduled to check out in the morning anyway, so it’s a simple matter to defer the matter to morning and check him out then…However, he wanted a receipt…This means ol’ Sparrow would actually have to work: room and tax would have to be manually posted, and then the room billed and checked out before a receipt could be printed…Fortunately, the guy said it would actually be better if we emailed him the receipt in the morning…God bless this man…I ensured we had his email address on file and wished him safe travels on his drive to the big city airport.
Here is a SparrowProTip: do not think you’re not going to be charged for the nite…You are…If you want to avoid being billed for the nite, it’s considered good form to leave before the regular 1100 checkout time, tho we could probably work with noon or even 1300 or 1400, depending on whether or not we like you…In fairness to the gent, tho, he never indicated he didn’t expect to fork over for the final nite.
Right after that Mr W with the state wildlife office checked in…Mr W, tho, wasn’t the name of the remaining arrival, tho some checking showed his two rooms – 144 and 255 – had already been checked in and a check of the registration cards showed both had been signed…Then ol’ Sparrow went Joe Friday on him, showing him the registration card:
Do you recognize this signature, sir???
He did, IDing the catscratch as that of a co-worker…Exactly why we had checked in both rooms may always be a Wonder of the Front Desk and Lord knows it’s not strait out of the Front Desk Handbook…The question, obviously, is which room has the co-worker in it and because 255 had vehicle information on it, it seemed reasonable to give him keys to 144.
The big news is while the falsies were brought to work, they weren’t worn at all…We are still sickies…Now, the medicine alleviates the sinus inflammation somewhat and the ibuprofen turns in solid work on the pain, but it’s tuff to wear the top partial, so we didn’t bother…Ongoing consultations with WebMD and the Harvard Medical School are showing that there is nothing to do but grin and bear it…The virus that is causing it – apparently similar to the one that causes the common cold – will go away in its own sweet time.
We’re not prepared to declare Thursday a Sparrow Day where we don’t even leave the house, but we’re pretty close…We’ve been running around more than usual lately and spending the day in the chair reading – without the hassle of workout, lawn mowing, and going to the next county – is looking pretty darn good right now…We’ll see, tho, and the decision may not be made until 0500 Thursday when we usually leave for the gym.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Tuesday until 1900 Tuesday…10.0 hours for the day and 26.0 hours for the week, not the highest Tuesday Total (TT) in history, but a hell of a figure nonetheless.
To reinforce our seriousness about getting a good day’s rest, we took a shot of Zzz-Sleep beforehand…That hasn’t always worked in recent weeks, tho, but soon enuff after hitting the chair for some reading we were dozing, so we turned in.
You never know what’s going to happen here, tho…Mostly you fall asleep, but sometimes you don’t and you’re up till late or morning or – horror of horrors – mid-afternoon or you end up with a split sleep session (SSS), something regular readers of this crap know we’ve had more than our share of lately…Not today, tho…We had a good rest with vivid, mostly peaceful dreams, with only one interruption to use the can, a figure that has increased for some reason in recent weeks.
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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.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!
