It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Thursday, May 9
Boy, strength today in the gym was really average…And, as usual, this was plain from the very first warm-up sets…Why is a mystery because we’d had a fabulous rest (see Sleep Log below) and were, per Standard Sparrow Policy (SSP), stoned to the gills: we were giving every indication of someone ready to go move some good weight.
But we ended up only moving average weight and our muscles were so unenthused about their assignment that even average weight – a plate or so below good weight – was failure at ten or eleven reps.
And the heater is fixed!!!…I am not making that up.
Sam called about 0800 to announce he’d be leaving the shop in the next county abut 0830 and should be here about 0900 but he was actually a few minutes early.
We let him in anyway.
He got right to work and initially didn’t have any more success lighting the pilot than we had…He looked around and noted there was dust all over the place, so he cleaned it up and tried again, and BOOM, the pilot lit right up.
(Sam, by the way, did not secure power to the unit, as specified in the instructions…When quizzed about it later – recall we had secured power to the whole house to prevent an explosion – he shook his head and said it was unnecessary.)
There was a fly in the ointment, tho…Sam had me go and fire up the thermostat, and the unit fired right up – a heartwarming sound – and after a couple of minutes he had me go lower the thermostat so the heater would shut down…The heater doesn’t move on a dime so this takes a few minutes and when it does shut down BOOM the pilot lite goes back out.
So Sam goes back in and fiddles around some more, and we’re thinking crap, our worst fear has come to pass: the heater itself is tits up, official Navy phraseology for something being broken…(As an aside, if enuff things on your boat were tits up, your boat was officially broke dick.)…This wasn’t the case, tho, as Sam, God bless him, soon announced the problem was the thermocoupler – or something like that – and he happened to have one in the truck…The repair was simple and a few minutes later the heater was back up and running again…We cycled it a few times just to make sure, Sam checked for carbon monoxide, and when there wasn’t any we both declared the repair successful.
Recall earlier this week, yours truly was completely losing his mind searching for a woman to go out with…Hell, it was almost all-consuming, which happens from time to time in the life of a working bachelor…We’re as human as anyone else, still in full possession of Mother Nature’s mandate to pair off and reproduce, despite the fact we really don’t want to do either.
The final figures are in and, all told, ol’ Sparrow had lines in the water with over a half-dozen women…It was a solid list, too, filled with both past failures and exciting fresh talent: names like Nazzie, Mystery Girl, Lara, Julie, Terri, Millie, and others; all were in the crosshairs, eligible to be asked out with Liz, Carolyn, and The Widow B on the extra board, just in case…Now, circumstances prevented asking all of them out, but enuff were asked out so that ol’ Sparrow was in real danger of going out on an actual date.
We got off easy, with only Terri taking the bait…We’re headed to the big city next week for dinner, and this might not even be an actual date…We like each other, and I’m in her wheelhouse, too, but the morning line favorite is that this will simply be two friends having dinner. You never know, though, the type of exciting wildcard that keeps you getting up in the morning.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: Details on the Thursday/Friday sleep session will be given tomorrow.
———
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.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!
