It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, February 22
The big news at the hotel is that Keenan was finishing up rejecting a suspected counterfeit C note when we waddled it for our shift…It was a Japanese gent, and he seemed perplexed; Keenan declined to accept it saying it felt funny, and he said the mark he made on it with our special pen did not produce a satisfactory color.
We put our stuff down and asked to see the bill…The gent handed it over and it was one of those old school hundred-dollar bills and while didn’t feel funny (to us, tho we’re hardly a Treasury agent) the $100s written in the corners didn’t really look like we remembered them but, again, we’re hardly Mr Fake Bill here…The mark the pen made, tho, wasn’t a whole lot different than the mark on a C note that met with Keenan’s approval…It was a bit darker, but the color was the same…The gent was confused, too, wondering what he could do…We told him to try to pass it off on some other hapless clerk that wasn’t as stalwart as Keenan, or go to a casino and put it in a slot machine because sometimes they’ll accept them.
(At least Keenan was paying more attention than Heidi was years ago, when she accepted a $100 bill that had “Hollywood Movie Money” stamped on it…We looked for it, because it was knocking around the back office for a while, but it’s gone now.)
Those keeping score at home may – or they may not – be wondering what procedure is if someone offers you a suspected counterfeit note…Well, it’s OK to request another from of payment because you are under no obligation to take a suspected counterfeit bill…What you don’t do is take it from him because that is theft, and you certainly don’t tell him you think he counterfeited it, because odds are he didn’t.
You’d run into counterfeit bills from time to time in Sin City…Twenty years ago, slot machines could sometimes be fooled, tho the machines in the count room generally could not…A report was required, of course, and there was a Secret Service form to fill out and every now and then they’d come and pick them up…If the bill was fake, they’d keep it, and the hotel swallowed the loss, but if it was legit, they’d return it…Few were returned.
Soon after Keenan left a quartet of strapping young lads waltzed in, with the trail boss announcing he had a reservation…Well, we checked, and we we didn’t have one under his name and, after query by me, he said no, there was no way it could possibly be under another name…So he starts working his phone looking for a confirmation from Expedia, but none was found, possibly because the reservation hadn’t been made…The guys were all good natured sorts and didn’t get too worked up over not having a place to sleep on a cold winter’s nite and took in good stride a term that at one time would’ve been considered funny but is now offensive.
Tonite was the 16th strait sellout I am not making that up, a Sparrow Era (SE) record…The year-over-year numbers are, of course, reflecting that…Revenue has gone from down 30K at the start of the streak to up 40K on occupancy that has gone from down 60 rooms to up 153.
We’re starting to see some results from the cardio sets we’ve been doing, namely, increased energy…We haven’t had coffee for a few days and not only are we feeling stronger, we’re getting to sleep faster and not waking up to use the can as much…We still haven’t settled into a routine, tho…Tonite we did some interval training on the treadmill: two minutes at a 10° up angle at 3.5 mph – which is pretty challenging for an old man like me – and one minute at the same speed but at at 2° up angle…This was a really good workout and next time we think we’ll do our patented medicine ball twists/battle rope superset and then three minutes at the advanced rate on the treadmill…We’re not really in the mood to run anymore and the sprint bike is out of favor right now, too, but some upped treadmill sets sound good, at least until we get sick of those…The shoulder is coming along, responding, slowly, to the break from weightlifting.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: The Sleep Log will return.
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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.
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!
