Sure, it’s Read Free Sunday (RFS) at The Diary.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, December 16
We told the Assistant Front Desk Manager (AFDM) that we would not be attending Tuesday’s hotel Christmas party because we’re sleeping at 1600 on Tuesdays…We could’ve sworn we had told him before, but evidently not because he seemed surprised…He’s another one who will have to answer the hard question of whether or not a Christmas party without ol’ Sparrow in attendance is really worth going to…Recall earlier M acknowledged that this is going to be a tuff call for him and his woman, too.
The AFDM confided that he isn’t entirely thrilled with the party right now, anyway…First, it turns out the “riff-raff” from Hotel B will there too – and we know what kind of scum they hire – and he added that restaurant employees will be there, too…His big complaint – outside of having to associate with them, of course, was more people there will cut into his chances of winning a prize in the raffle – presuming there is one, of course, who knows what with the recent economies…Topping it all off was the saddest of sad news that booze will not be served, probably because the bartenders will be at the party…For our part we noted that it would be nice if someone saved us a plate from whomever is catering it, tho long experience in the nite audit racket shows it is best to keep expectations low here, to avoid holiday disappointment because nite auditors are seldom thought of.
We got to meet Belinda today…Like some you meet only once in your life – Larry at the 2017 eclipse comes to mind – she probably won’t be forgotten.
We first saw her when she came by early on to buy some sundry stand stuff and later we gave her a ride to the convenience store…She appeared to be around my age – perhaps a bit younger – tho she’s had some hard miles and that can make it tuff to tell…Still, tho, we have an eye for this and it was plain she was only a spa treatment and shopping spree away from fitting right in at the Fancy French Joint.
That was a long way away tho…Why she was at the hotel in a mini skirt would become clear later, but in the morning she was talking with Tammy trying to convert a lot of loose quarters into a roll of quarters…Well, we don’t have those and why she didn’t accept Tammy’s offer of cash will always be a Mystery of the Front Desk.
She was looking to convert loose change because she needed a ride to the convenience store on the other side of town and was looking for a cab…The town doesn’t have those anymore, tho, and Tammy suggested the bus, which picks up nearby and is free to the rider, but she said she had a lot of bags…We still weren’t sure exactly what the deal was, but we told her to go and get her bags and report back to the lobby forthwith for ground transportation…She was grateful, as she should’ve been, because getting across town would’ve been a colossal pain in the arse.
It turned out she was at the hotel because her long haul trucker boyfriend she’s been on the road with for the past three months got arrested…We asked what for which was stupid because you didn’t have to be Joe Friday to strongly suspect her boyfriend hadn’t been hooked up for violating the grace and favor statutes…He had smacked her around and on the back of the head so, as Belinda said, there wouldn’t be any marks on her face, which indicated she had some experience in this matter.
Crap, she’s in a box…Her boyfriend wouldn’t be released until Monday at the earliest, presuming he made bail…The truck was at the convenience store and she wanted to go there because it was unlocked and she had to be somewhere…Her stay at the hotel had been paid for by the local spouse abuse advocates (because they aren’t all women).
Sigh…It was 1°F out…Short of taking her home this was all I could do for her: leave her at a semi-rig so she could sit in the cab on a day that wasn’t going to be a whole hell of a lot warmer than the nite had been…We didn’t consider taking her home, though…Sure, it’s possible she would’ve cleaned the house and earned her keep, but other things – like the cat getting fileted and served for dinner – were possible, too, so we didn’t….We have so much compared to some, and we felt a twinge of guilt, but we got over it once we crawled into our nice warm bed.
Workout was a chore tonite…Despite one hell of a rest (see Sleep Log below) the final reps/seconds of everything were hard: both the final sets of weights and all sets of cardio…We were rested and stoned to the gills on our pre-workout stuff and as we considered the matter we decided we didn’t give ourselves the calories we usually do…This was true enuff…We’re cutting down and while we’re getting trimmer and our new pants are a size smaller, we don’t have the strength we’re used to…Or maybe it was just one of those nites.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0930 Saturday until 1830 Saturday…9.0 hours for the day and 51.0 hours for the week, a workmanlike tho hardly spectacular total…We’ll take it, tho…Any fifty hour sleep week is good.
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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!
