Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Wednesday, January 15
The big news at the hotel is the new artwork is in…Recall the newly remodeled rooms have been without the usual tacky crap hotels foist off on guests…I don’t think anyone cared…No one complained and no one took advantage of our free candy bar offer for not having it, either.
Also, there are some new room keys at the front desk…They’re the same green with the hotel logo on it, but they don’t have the arrows at the bottom telling which direction to stick your key in the lock…I think they’re designed for locks where you just press your key up against the front of the lock and not the ones where actually slide the key inside the lock…Too bad, because those arrows are useful for us front desk clerks when making keys…I tried sticking them in the old way but the key making machine started acting up so I went and got some of the holiday season keys from the storeroom…Later, Assistant Front Desk Manager Devani told me the keys are inserted the other way and why someone didn’t tell me that remains one of the Wonders of the Front Desk.
It should have been a spirited day at the Veterans Service Office (VSO) but my 1100 appointment called to cancel so it was a rather slow day…Right after I got in Mr G called for an appointment today…You know, this not a particularly busy VSO but if you are going to call me please answer my questions…Do not go off a VA rant…Though I’ve been VSO less than a year like you I am aware the VA can be a pain the arse to deal with…I don’t require further examples…Two, do not interrupt me…I am here to help you but I am a VSO and not a dentist: I am not here to pull teeth…You have to be patient: dealing with vets is no different than dealing with your shipmates while you were in, you get all types and some follow your directions while some tend to ramble.
The first thing he wanted, an update on his medical exams last summer, I emailed someone about and the second thing – VA intramural squabbling – I can do nothing about but he insisted on coming in anyway.
He was a half-hour early for his appointment and I think he was just looking for someone other than his old lady to talk with because he was in the office an hour or so when he really didn’t need to come in at all…I had emailed Carissa at the state office asking about his case and I hadn’t heard back from her and there was, literally, nothing I could for him, but that didn’t stop him from diving in on a complete history….He had significant Agent Orange exposure in ‘Nam and now things were starting to go wrong with him and he wanted to know the results of exams he’d had last summer…Pretty reasonable, actually, and I told him eventually we’d get to the bottom of it.
It was a gorgeous winter day – clear and just below freezing – when I drove home, but we’d had some snow and it wasn’t a surprise to find the driveway needed to be plowed when I got home, to include the usual fortress berm the loser town snow plowers left…There was some worry that some of the snow might have melted and refroze but no, while it was warmish in town it was actually colder at The Shire which is rare because our small town is a few hundred feet lower and usually it’s a bit warmer…So the snow machine got it all, including the berm which shows the tenacity of the snowblower because at the edge of the street the berm was actually a bit higher than the top of the snowblower…You gotta be careful here because if you dive right in the blower might stall, but some skillful maneuvering on my part prevented that and no s.
We’ve had no small amount of snow this winter and the snowblower has already been used more than all of last winter combined…In fact, we’ve had so much snow ol’ Sparrow will probably be obliged to move snow off the carport roof before too long.
The Wife said she will be coming home next week, giving her a month in Kansas tending to her sister, whose prognosis is getting better…Mainly there’s less crud coming out of her insides and she is out of ICU…Our oaf brother-in-law, not content with recovering from his broken ankle and probably jealous of the attention his wife is getting, apparently has checked himself into the hospital for tests on his heart, which is good because it will keep him from tripping over his own shadow.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: As usual, there was no sleep to report for Wednesday.
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.
Let’s be friends. Follow me on Facebook.
