Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Friday, May 25
One of the nice things about marriage is you learn when to listen to your wife…So when The Wife (who’s in the big city for the retailer this week) said to check for lawn mower repair services in the next county, I knew to listen to her because while my request for a new lawn mower was approved in spirit, I knew she would really prefer to have the current one repaired.
So I headed out to Wild West Repair in the next county this morning…I had chatted online last night with someone who turned out to be the wife and the husband, Kelly, was at the shop when I pulled in…He made a good first impression, greeting me with a firm handshake while introducing himself…I told him the mower had made a clanking sound and then stopped running, then made popping sounds when I tried to stop it…He had his mechanic check the blade, which turned out to be loose and accounted for the clanking sound…Then he asked me if I wanted the blade sharpened and the oil changed and I said yes…He detailed his hourly shop rate, told me what he was going to do to my mower and said it should cost about $110 or so…I said that sounded fine and to call me if it was going to be more than that and he said sure, he should have it done by the middle of next week.
Then I remembered I had brought the side discharge cover I had tried to reattach during Thursday’s lawn mowing fiasco. So I went to the car and got it and told Kelly about it and he said he had the same thing happen to his mower and he detailed some technical crap I didn’t understand but sounded like “double-tapping screw” and said he’d put it on there so “it ain’t ever coming off”.
The downside, of course, is The Shire’s lawn is only one-third done and now it becomes imperative that no one in town mows their lawn so mine still looks good by comparison.
I manfully avoided the Mexican joint in the next county so I could try out our small town’s new restaurant…It was about 1000 when I got there and it was doing OK business…Like our beloved the diner, the service was leisurely, but the biscuits and gravy, hash browns and sausage were pretty good…Very good, actually, tho not as good as the stromboli at the diner.
The place still looks like a dump on the outside, tho…Like everyone else in town their lawn is weed infested and needs to be mowed…It looks utterly unattractive from the street…The inside, tho, is sharp and if you could teleport directly into the dining room you’d have a much better experience.
After I got home I farted around for an hour or so before declaring a General Holiday for the rest of the afternoon…I haven’t declared a General Holiday in a while and it went great…I immediately retired to the bedroom to do some reading of the Alexander Hamilton biography I am enjoying immensely…It was a gorgeous day so I opened the windows and I could hear the birds around the feeder and it was all very pleasant…After a couple of hours, I started to nod off and while I put the book down and rolled over I never really did get a nap in…I resumed reading and eventually went to the convenience store for a couple of corn dogs before heading in for a shift at the retailer.
We were swamped at the retailer tonight…We’re still shorthanded cashiers and I spent most of the night on my beloved Aisle 5…Since it’s a holiday weekend people were buying lots of snacks, which gave me an opportunity to trot two of my fave lines: “are those snacks or a meal plan” and “can I try these out, to test for freshness?”.
I used the latter line with customers buying everything from cashews to Cheez-Itz to even ice cream, with one lady wondering why I didn’t offer to field test her yogurt…One time the snacks-meal-plan line was used on a Norwegian couple, who actually seemed to get the joke, even tho English isn’t their first language….These lines never get old…Or, rather, I don’t think they ever get old because I still get a chuckle out of them.
For a holiday weekend, Hotel A sure was slow…I had plenty of rooms to move but there were not any walk-ins…There was also a baby at the front desk…Amy, the new GM was working and though I hadn’t seen her for a couple of months I didn’t think it was hers…Turns out it was her sisters, so the kid was her niece…The kid is pretty young, too…I asked Amy is she had been born earlier on her shift she was that small but Amy said no, she was six weeks old.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0100 Friday until 0730 Friday…7.5 hours that lay a good foundation for a long day because I won’t get to sleep again until Saturday morning…The weekly totals should be the best of the month, and there will be monthy averages, too…God bless all of you.
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.
Read Gaylon’s latest: We The People: Making America America Again at www.GaylonKent.com
