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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Thursday, January 5
Damn, there was a lot of snow at the resort this morning…We’ve had an insane amount the past couple of days, which is great for skiers, lousy for those reporting for duty because the Maintenance guys hadn’t shown up yet and I just parked in the driveway to the front desk building for the first hour or so until everything got sorted out.

I had to make a delivery to Building 4, too, and that took forever…Usually you use the walkway that cuts past one the 20-person hot tub and go in thru a side door, but the pathway looked like a trail to South Pole Station so I had to backtrack and cut thru Bldg 3’s side door…Since I’m old and can’t remember squat anymore I immediately walked up the stairs to the second floor of Bldg 3 because my delivery was on the second floor of Bldg 4 and I thought I was in the proper building…I give myself credit that I recognized I was on the second floor of the wrong building a few steps before knocking on the wrong door.

Then, heading down the stairs of the Bldg 3 stairwell I misgauged a step and fell down…Fortunately, I only fell down one step and no damage was done, never a given at any age for ol’ Sparrow.

I felt like I was on the Lewis and Clark Expedition trying to deliver some lousy amenities…The walk from the side of Bldg 3 to the side of Bldg 4 was also impassable, so I had to work my way to the front door…I managed to make it back to the front desk without getting lost or injured.

We still don’t have a PBX operator!!!…I don’t know what the problem is…Last week she was supposed to be in background and my email today said she was still in background…I don’t understand this at all…CIA agents have hit the ground with shorter background investigations than our new hotel operator will have…We could use her, too…It is getting tedious doing other jobs during our busiest season.

Had some fun with Jesus today…He called me from room 2204 wondering who had placed the work order in for the fireplace in 2304 not working….I looked it up and Gabriel had done it…Jesus said the fireplace was in fine working order.

Uh, Jesus…
What, man…
The order was for 2304…You’re calling me from 2204.

A very well-timed pause.

Oh…
Yeah…Rooms here, Jesus, are numbered based on the building they’re in and the floor they’re on…So 2304 would be on the third floor…You’re on the second floor.

To his credit, Jesus took it well, laffing and then hanging up.

The Wife and I snowblowed the driveway tonight…I had shoveled enough to allow us to get our cars out of the driveway, but there was still a lot of snow, we moved it out tonight…Exhausted by our labors, we retired to the comfort of the local diner for dinner…I had a burger and The Wife had the meatball sandwich.

Charlie changed his French fries a little bit, too…I had onion rings, but I sampled The Wife’s fries – for freshness – and they were seasoned differently and seemed to be cut different or something…They weren’t as good as the usual fries there.

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 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Wednesday, January 4
Got some new windshield wipers today…I was going to get them yesterday, but they didn’t have my size in a decent brand at the retailer and I’m old now and have no attention span, so I forgot to stop at a real auto parts store on the way home…This despite the fact there are two of them right there on the right as you’re heading out of town.

As usual, I had Amber install them…Amber made me wait, tho, because she had to finish her sandwich before the top of the hour because of some glucose blood test she had scheduled later that day…She’s pregnant, again, six months along, too, another boy, her third.

Anyway, I could’ve put it on myself…It really isn’t that hard, altho regular readers of this crap might – or they might not – remember that I’ve made wiper installation difficult in the past…The wipers I bought came with a thingy that looked like it connected the wiper blade to the arm, but Amber disregarded this and merely looped the hook on the arm around the middle of the wiper…Wappo!!!…Done…I thought, hell, even I could’ve done that (I really could have), but you can’t beat expert installation as I always say and I really needed new wipers, anyway.

Had one hell of a workout today…Sufficiently doped up on my primo workout supplement, of course…Max workout, not the strongest ever, tho, because the big exercises, bench press and squats, are still a plate or two below what I used move, but the smaller muscles are as strong as ever.

Here’s a for instance: hammer curls…They work the bicep and involve moving a dumbbell from your side up towards your shoulder…Normally, the final set I can move 35 pounds, with the tenth rep being the last one I can do with good form, known as failure in the gym…Today I moved 40 pounds…Same with other small groups…Side lateral raises were 30 pounds and the tricep pulldown machine was the entire stack…These are not bad weights for a middle-aged man.

The Wife and I are still sleeping with those nasal strips across our noses…They do seem to open up the breathing ducts a bit and The Wife says she is sleeping better…Mine sometimes ended up pasted to the headboard, tho…I have no idea why this is…I do not knowingly do this…I must not be too thrilled with them tho, because I appear to be taking them off in the middle of the night, tho why I am attaching them to the headboard is still a mystery.

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 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Tuesday, January 3
Found myself in court today…Or, more accurately, The Wife found herself in the docket today, with her beloved husband there as Defense Counsel.

A few weeks ago The Wife – in what was hardly one of 2016’s biggest upsets – was pulled over for speeding…The trooper was going to let her off with a warning, however, she did not have the required insurance documentation with her…He got snitty and cited her for that and the court date was this morning.

Oh boy, The Wife was in ill-humor, not taking her role in the cog of justice well at all…She was “going before the judge”, something she had done since her first marriage ended years ago and she was not looking forward to it…I tried to tell her that with the paperwork showing she was, in fact, insured at the time she was pulled over the entire matter would be dismissed, but she wasn’t hearing that at all.

Had it not been for me she might well have ended up in jail…The Wife, being basically decent, wanted to plead Guilty because, as she kept pointing out she was guilty…Well, that, of course, is simply nonsense…You do not plead Guilty in these situations…There was no explaining this to her, though.

Court was scheduled for 8:30am and there were lots of people there…It’s a small town so it should not be too surprising that I knew a couple of them, one a kid who used to work the front desk for me at the resort and another girl who works at local bank…The judge was late, too…At 8:32 The Wife asked me nervously where the judge was and I told her he was tightening the nooses which actually made her laff which it should have because it was a funny line, maybe even an early Line of the Year candidate, tho there’s still a lot of year left to go.

Anyway, it took a awhile to get to us…First His Honor had to sort thru those who wanted to chat with the DA before facing the rest of their day…Then he picked losers at random to meet their fate…The first couple-three were minors cited for possessing booze…All pleaded guilty and were sentenced to some sort of class and His Honor suspended half the $100 fine, tho there were still enough costs and fees and charges and whatnot to make being a minor in possession a fairly expensive proposition.

After about 20 minutes His Honor pointed at The Wife, who immediately stood up…I smiled and covered my eyes with a hand…The Wife can get chatty when her emotions get away from her and it was entirely possible she would plead Guilty and then start in talking about her kids…As it was, we got off easy…The whole judicial system got off easy…The judge motioned for us to approach the bench, then held his hand out to receive the paperwork.

Hopefully this won’t be too difficult…

It wasn’t…The Wife handed him what she had – her copy of the citation plus the insurance document – and he inspected them pretty closely and then declared the State was dismissing the charge and, since they were dismissed, there were none of those pesky associated costs the other scofflaws were obliged to fork over.

After that we went to the gym where I pumped some iron and The Wife did some cardio and afterwards we both soaked in the hot springs…Then we did some grocery shopping and headed home.

My workout was good…I was on the really good pre-workout supplement of course and even tho I missed last week’s workouts because of the emergency family reunion and being sickies, I had very good strength…I just did the short workout, tho…Tomorrow I’ll be back for a max workout.

There was a ton of snow to shovel out of the way simply to get out of the driveway…As usual, our goddamned small town snow plowers built up an all but impenetrable fortress when the plowed past our driveway this morning…Good gravy it had to be two feet high…The good news was Her Majesty had the snow blower out and was getting the rest of the driveway when we drove up…She does a good job, too…Sharp edges and 90 degree angles on the corners so if the Commandant of the Marine Corps ever comes by to inspect our driveway, we’re sure to pass.

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 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Monday, January 2
The saddest words: Aisle 5 is closed!!!

One minute the credit card machine was accepting transactions and the next it wasn’t…I wasn’t on there at the time – I don’t know why I wasn’t on there at the time, I often am – but the entire aisle was actually out of commission for an hour or so…They must have a tech stashed away in a locker someplace because there was someone working on it pretty quickly, and it probably could’ve been worse.

In fact, I wasn’t on Aisle 5 all day…I am not making that up…I started on three and also got some time on four and the common denominator there was both were desperate for change…Three needed ones and fives and quarters while four needed all possible denominations of coinage produced by the US Treasury…There were zero quarters, a few dimes, two nickels and some pennies.

Turns out there weren’t any quarters anywhere in the store, except our customer’s pockets of course…So I had loads of dimes and were giving lots of those out…When the whole store is out of quarters, the bank is probably out and if the bank is out it’s probably the evil bastards at the Doily Delivery Company (DDC) aren’t doing their goddamned jobs.

DDC service went straight in the crapper the day after I left…I used to ask whenever I’d be at the bank or in a store we serviced, but now I don’t but I don’t have to…People tell me…

Spent some time at self-checkout, too…My hatred of self-checkout is as well-known as it is deep and everlasting…One, I have some zero clue what is going…I had 30 seconds of training a couple of months ago and it’s all forgotten…Only 95 percent of customers needed help this time – as opposed to the 99.99993 percent the other time I was on self-checkout – so it wasn’t too bad, and all I really did was scan my badge and pressed whatever button seemed most likely to solve the problem.

I was prepared to die at self-checkout, but right about the time I was about to bang my head against the freezer across the way Harmony came and relieved me for my break.

Look, if you’re in the retailer wearing the uniform of a team that is playing in the Rose Bowl while the game is going on and you are carrying a list and being led around by your wife you are not master of your own castle!!…I’m sorry…If this is only your girlfriend, flee, it aint gonna get any better…If you’re married, sack up and establish a boundary or two, like when your team is playing in the Rose Bowl you’re either at the game in person or watching it on tee vee.

Me, I’m master of my own castle…Don’t doubt that…I don’t know about you.

Like I do most shifts, I got to use the really funny line about scanning babies because they’re 33 percent off this week…This young couple had three kids, actually, including an infant and the line got laffs from both mommy and daddy.

This joke never gets old…I don’t think…You gotta trust your instincts, tho…You can’t just throw it out there willy-nilly whenever some chick with a kid strapped to her comes thru…You gotta know your audience, and there have been times I haven’t actually used The Line when a family with an infant has come thru.

At the resort, the big news was Celia washed my coffee cup!!!…I am not making that up!!!…I usually keep it on top of the frig in the break room specifically to keep people from washing it, but I must’ve left it on the counter because Celia is about three feet tall and probably wouldn’t bother to get a cup that’s on top of the frig…She actually came by to apologize because Ismael told her I was angry…I laffed it off, telling her I applauded her commitment to Beverage Container Cleanliness, but made a mental note to keep it the hell out of her reach from now on.

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 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Sunday, January 1
We are not particularly shorthanded, but for some reason I am by myself more often than not for the first couple of hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings…Nothing too overwhelming happens, but boy, no one is receiving the service either they are expecting to receive or I am looking to deliver…We weren’t swamped this morning, but it was steady enough to ensure the phone wasn’t always getting answered and the coffee service was not always fresh or stocked and that guests sometimes had to wait a few minutes merely to get a couple of coffee filters…I talked to the new manager Julie about when she came in in the afternoon, too…I don’t mind the work, but if phones aren’t getting answered you need more people because on of the first rules of anything is answer the phone because you never when someone needing a paramedic is on the other end.

The carnage at the resort wasn’t too bad…I mean, all buildings were still standing and no one got so excited over the impending new year that they cut any tree down and all cars were still upright…But one of the hot tubs was such a mess it stayed closed all day and the units were a complete disaster…When I left at 3:30 they still had 20 or so units to assign, which is a lot.

I started getting sickies again after lunch…Throat and nose crap…I don’t do sick, altho I did puke on the side of the road last week, of course, so I called off at the retailer, which is a hell of a lot easier than trying to get an EO, you merely call in 800 number, enter your ID and birth date, hit a couple of buttons and write down your confirmation number.

Got some kudos from a guest today after finding a room that was clean for them when their assigned room was not yet ready…Tho I made it look easy, t was a pain in the neck, actually…The only other room in their category that was clean had guest coming in for one night, followed by another for two nights and yet another for four more…They were here for a week, so I unassigned the folks from the other room and then assigned the people who were at the desk to the new room…The unassigned rooms had to be reassigned, so I did that, too…Because I’m old and can’t remember squat anymore it was best to do all those actions right then rather than remember to do them later.

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 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Saturday, December 31
It was real slow at the retailer today…Not Dead Slow, but slower than when we normally sit around wondering “wow, it’s pretty slow today”…It was slow enough that I went up to Maria at the service desk and advised her if she wanted to save the company a few bucks I’d take an early out.

Crap, you’d’ve thought I’d requested admission to the College of Cardinals…First Maria had to consult her hand-held device for guidance, probably to ensure the whole customer service paradigm of the entire Tri-County Area wasn’t affected…Then she passed it off on my neighbor Ricky, who manages some department or another, telling me to go find him…I did, and Ricky, who lives right down the street and at whose house we once watched the Super Bowl, grabbed the bull by the horns and immediately started hemming and hawing…He said, well, yeah, he could make the decision on whether or not the suddenly all-important Sparrow knocks off early, but Zach, the Assistant Manager on Duty, would really decide…He added it would “cost” me, too, in attendance points, because leaving early apparently is treated just slightly less seriously than theft.

Crap, it was literally easier to get nominated to run for the United States Senate a couple of years ago…Recall I didn’t even show up to the convention…I merely stayed home and Nick ran my name up flagpole and everybody saluted.

I patted Ricky on the arm and told him to forget it, it wasn’t worth it, I’ll stick out the entire four-hour shift…He seemed relieved.

It was so slow there weren’t even any memorable purchases…There was this mom and her son and I got the impression she was buying for his dorm room frig because nothing was too expensive or difficult to prepare, but the college here doesn’t start up again for a couple of weeks, so maybe they’re short on dough.

The day job was busy, but we had four – four! – people there so it went pretty smooth…I was there for the first three hours by myself, but Leah, Thania and the new manager Julie all came in around ten and there was enough to keep us busy, especially Thania who has the special duty of inventorying the gift shop every month…This means counting not only the crap still in the gift shop but in the Bldg 5 storage room, too…I helped by counting the Croakies and the Chap Stick and entering everything into the point of sale system.

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 19^th-century British novel of the same name.

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