Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Monday, October 26
Despite having a lousy shift, Amy left me some pizza tonight…It was a white pizza with some chicken and whatnot and while that’s hardly my go-to choice, it’s free and it’s pretty good, both traits right up my alley…She had a bit more than half left and rather than waste it on her sister she decided to give ol’ Sparrow an opportunity to have some…She even invited me to take as much as I wanted, tho I only took a couple of slices.
When I dove in on the night’s work there were three registration cards in the arrival rack, but when I checked for arrivals in the system there weren’t any…All right, this happens sometimes and a check showed two of the arrivals were already checked-in and a new registration card was printed – Q is notorious for that – and the old one left in there…The other one, tho, wasn’t in-house and yet another check showed he had moved his reservation for arrival on another day….This was a relief…Amy reported there were a couple of screwups on the shift (she worked with Q) and I was thinking maybe something got screwed up and he was still expected even tho everyone was in, but that wasn’t the case.
The older gent who’s come by for coffee around 0400 for coffee was by again today…Of course, coffee was ready for him – even if it wasn’t out yet – and he said he needed some help…All right I’m here to serve even if I don’t have a magic wand, and he said the snow confused him and be banged into something and damaged a fender and a tire and the tire had to replaced with the small spare in the trunk…Someone had recommended the thieves at Store A to get the tire replaced and he wanted help calling them while he was out hunting for the day…Well, this is not particularly reasonable…One, were not servants; it’s really not our job to coordinate tire repairs, and two – and this is what I told him – they’ll probably ask questions we can’t answer anyway, so it’s best you call anyway…This sounded reasonable to him and he said he could actually call from the landline house at the ranch their hunting at because cell service is non-existent down there…I also steered him to Store B, which is the same company I used in the next county to get the winter tires put on.
Later a guest came in looking for Morning Coffee Service (MCS) and I pointed behind him because he had walked right past it, which happens regularly…It turns out he’s from Haiti and he’s he to start work somewhere and he said he was about to walk into the snow for the first time in his life…He had to be in his 30s and he added he’d always wondered what snow would be like…Well, I told him I’d first felt snow fall up here years ago – just down the highway as a matter of fact – and he’d probably like it, tho it took some getting used…I watched him walk outside and there wasn’t any hesitation at all, he walked out from under the Porte-cochere and walked on it a bit before lighting up a smoke…He was hardly dressed for winter – up here, at least, maybe in Haiti – so hopefully he’ll get some warmer stuff.
Here’s the shoe lineup for the winter…Regular readers of this crap may – or they may not – recall I keep shoes at work because you really can’t wear boots with boot covers while on the job…Well, you can, but they’re hardly necessary and they look dorky besides.
Tonight, yours truly brought in the Red Wing slip-ons I got for $10 at a thrift store in the next county last year…At the Veterans Service Office (VSO) the black sneakers from last year have been sitting there all summer, so they were on station and ready to go this morning.
Outside of changing shoes, it was pretty slow at the VSO…There were a couple of phone calls and there are appointments Wednesday and Friday, so ol’ Sparrow will end up earning at least part of his salary this week.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1530 Monday until 2130 Monday…6.0 hours for the day and 11.0 hours for the week.
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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