Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, August 3
And Choco-tacos are back!!!…Our long national trauma is over.
Of course, I noticed immediately they were back in the freezer as I passed the sundry stand when reporting for duty (it’s on the left) and a quick check of the back office freezer showed not one, but two boxes, meaning guests will have Choco-tacos for the rest of the summer, and probably well into the slow season, too, because Labor Day is right around the corner.
Right off the bat 215 calls to report she can’t find the blackout curtain (all our rooms have windows)…There’s some green curtain in front and I assure her the blackout curtain is behind it, but she insists it isn’t…So I tell her I’ll be right up to make her weep with embarrassment when I find them, but that was just a bunch of babble: I know better…I wait 30 seconds or so and sure enuff, she calls back – as guests invariably do – to report she miraculously found the blackout curtain…This isn’t a regular occurrence, but you can generally depend on this happening every few months.
There were kids all over the place tonight: needing new keys, buy sugar-packed sundry stand stuff and even requesting linens…About midnight this kid came up and asked for “more pillows and blankets”…This is a pretty general request that really needs to be narrowed down and thru adroit questioning I found out what he really needed was a pillow, blanket and comforter for their pull-out couch…Easy enuff, but I had a heck of a time finding a pillow, finally finding one tossed in a corner of the laundry room…It looked clean enuff and I put a pillow case on it (ours zip up!) and made the sign of the cross before pronouncing it fit for duty.
We weren’t sold out, but room revenue was well over $20K and we had people paying anywhere from $289 to $199 tonight…Here’s an Official Sparrow ProTip on how to pay $199 when most others are paying $289: use those sites that let you name your price…Scope out the rate on the hotel’s website, take half off, and enter that…It will probably be turned down, but start working up from there…Now, the problem with these sites is you pay in advance, no refunds, and you don’t know the exact hotel you’re getting until you pay, but the rates at these sites – known as opaque sites in the trade – are usually lower.
I even let one couple have a room for $189, tho I did charge them $289 for Saturday nite…They were doing some camping and that wasn’t turning out like they had planned so they were looking for a room…There is no reason to charge full price at oh-dark-thrity, tho guy wasn’t pleased, asking me in that diffident manner you find only in the truly cheap when the f*ck rates came down…I smiled graciously as I swiped his credit card and said summer was as busy as winter here, tho fall and spring were pretty laid back which didn’t really answer his question but, as regular readers of this crap know, there really isn’t an answer to that question.
Good thing I worked out Friday because otherwise I would have slept thru the usual Saturday workout…I didn’t wake up until 1900 (See Sleep Log below) and almost interesting is the fact I was up at 1330 or so to use the can and didn’t immediately fall back asleep, so I thought I might have been up for good because I was feeling pretty good.
The Wife had a good dinner waiting, too, some chicken she had BBQd on Thursday to which she added some basil from one of her gardens…While I was asleep she had gone into town to the farmer’s market…Husbands everywhere know an unaccompanied wife at things like this is always scary because who the hell knows what they will come back with, my old story about The Wife buying $40 worth of soap – soap! – when we first got to town is hereby referenced…We got off easy, tho, as she only came back a couple loaves of bread.
Speaking of first moving to town, The Wife and I moved here eight years ago this week…We had planned it for a year, after we were doing some camping in the state, at a nice place off the Interstate, a bit south of here…We were on our way to Kansas to see my beloved brother-in-law and sister-in-law and she really liked it and I told her I used to vacation here in the past and new a place up north and maybe she should move here???…The Wife didn’t even blink, she said yes and here we are.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1000 Saturday until 1900 Saturday…9.0 hours for the night and, hold on to your hats, 53.0 hours for the week, each one a triumph…I am not making that up…This was the first 50-hour sleep week since the week before I started the VSO gig in April and the highest total since the Sleep Log began…God bless all of you, tho we can’t rest on our laurel(s) because there is no rest for the rested, a new sleep week starts 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.
It was inspired by the 19th century British novel of the same name.
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