Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Tuesday, November 2
Regular readers of this crap might – or they might not – recall I would not dismiss out of hand to a scandal livening up my Congressional race…Longtime readers might recall the Robocall scandal during my 2014 United States Senate campaign…Some left-wing kooks sent out Robocalls that mentioned my name, which wasn’t too bad except they went out in the middle of the night…It resulted in no small amount of publicity for Sparrow for United States Senate.

I suspect I may have turned down an invite to a scandal…Today I received a text – my number is on my campaign’s website – that inquired as to whether or not I have ever “spanked a brunette”, with a following query focusing on my desire to engage in that activity.

Well, it was difficult to gauge my interest level because there wasn’t an attached pic…I mean, who wants to spank a cow???…And while I was mindful of my call for a scandal to liven up matters this campaign season, not only did I not reply to the text, I even deleted it.

Our small-town post met tonight…I am not a member of the post, of course, I belong to the post in town, but I am a member of their Sons squadron and I’m district commander, so I brought both caps to the meeting.

It was a pretty small turnout…Bob was there, and Commander Larry, plus Barbara and Dave and another Dave and Chris.

The big news is Brett resigned as adjutant…Good, because no one’s seen him for a while…His day job is district attorney, which out here covers three rural counties, and DAs anywhere are busy, so he resigned…Chris was elected adjutant unanimously tonight, which is good because he’s been performing adjutant duties for a couple of weeks and even attended Sunday’s district meeting as Post 89’s adjutant.

In my role as District 14 commander, I told Chris to call Pat the state adjutant and find out exactly what paperwork and reports he needs to file and when they are due…Don’t fart around…Go straight to the source, because the post is way behind on a lot of things they really shouldn’t be behind on…I also told him I command a post that is highly respected in this state because I have a good adjutant…I am really nothing…This is true…Stanko makes me look very good and I added you can’t have a good post without a good adjutant and to go out and make Commander Larry look good.

Bob, who’s 80 and has been a member of the post forever asked me if I would take over as commander of the Sons squadron…I said sure…Bob said the old commander quit or moved out of town or something…I’m not entirely sure, tho it’s not official until the squadron meets and elects me.

I was rather useful at work today…It’s the first of the month so I finished the income journals and Gabriel and I inventoried the gift shop and I entered everything in point of sale system…It was pretty slow otherwise…We only had a dozen or departures and five arrivals, so like a scamp I left early…I have tomorrow off before going back on Thursday.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either made up or are used fictitiously. Any other use 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, October 31
Had to redo my background packet for the detention deputy gig in the next county…The directions, which I couldn’t be bothered to read, specified black ink and I used blue…So I drove out to the next county this morning and get a new packet…It wasn’t too difficult to redo it, it just had to be re-written, I didn’t have to dig up any information, but it was still a pain and all my fault, too.

Since I was in the next county I could see no reason – good, bad or otherwise – not to have breakfast at our fave Mexican joint…One, I hadn’t bothered to eat before I left the house, probably because subconsciously I knew I was going to do this…The mind is funny like that…My usual quesadilla and chorizo burrito – no potatoes for Pete’s sake and extra chorizo for the love of all that is sacred – were really good, too.

My background packet is still in in plenty of time, too…There were about seven or eight signatures of mine that had to be notarized, but the girls at the desk at the sheriff’s office are all notaries public and they witnessed my signatures for me.

While I was at the window this older lady came by to pay for her CCW permit…I would think by the age of 70 anyone who really desired a permit to carry a concealed gun would already have one, but I was wrong…This lady shower her paperwork and paid her money and I presume eventually got her permit…Her husband was with her, standing – and this was pretty funny – a respectful distance behind her and he didn’t look all that pleased.

After that I went into town and renewed my driver’s license…Five years we’ve been here…Time doesn’t really fly anymore, but five years is nothing to sneeze at…The process was quick…I was the only one in line and I was done in a bit more than ten minutes…The girl recognized me, but I didn’t recognize her offhand…Turns out she used to work with The Wife at the retailer, which I deduced based on the questions she asked about The Wife…I still didn’t recognize her, but I pretended I did.

There’s a new driver’s license design, too…The print is insanely small…I see them from time to time at the resort and the names and addresses are very difficult to read, at least if you’re going blind like I appear to be…I also forgot my discharge papers, which would’ve entitled me to a veteran’s emblem on my license, which could be useful for getting discounts and out of my annual speeding ticket.

At the retailer I was in the back getting ready to go home when Dave asked me what my position on the Second Amendment was…I could tell my answer was important to him…I told him I support our Second Rights without qualification or restriction, just like I do our First Amendment rights…I could also tell he would not have dismissed a discussion out of hand, but my position is pretty cut and dry, so there wasn’t much to talk about, especially since I was about to clock out.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either made up or are used fictitiously. Any other use 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, October 30
Presided over my first meeting as commander of District 14 today.

There was a nice contingent from the state office there…Commander Jay and Pat the Adjutant were there, and so was my buddy Lou, who lives a bit south of here and is a state junior vice commander…They’re always at our district meetings tho.

The big news is two other junior vice commanders – we have four and are authorized as many as six – Terri and Robb also joined us…Well, now that I think about it Terri is actually senior vice commander, but they don’t always make it out, so officially it was still a great turnout from the state office.

I opened the meeting with the usual rituals, which included a prayer from Chaplain Ed…Ed is 91 and seemed surprised when all eyes went to him after I announced the chaplain will now lead us in prayer despite the fact I had discussed this with him a couple of minutes before.

Ed, tho, knows how to deliver a prayer…There are official Legion prayers we are supposed to use, and I like to use them because left to wing it some chaplains get a little too full of the Holy Spirit, but Ed keeps it nice and short.

The state officers took up the first 90 minutes or so…Jay started with suitably brief opening remarks before turning it over to Terri who spent no small amount of talking about membership…It’s down everywhere in the Legion…Except for my post and district, of course…I’m a 100 percent commander, but statewide we weren’t last year and we are expending a lot of effort to change that this year.

After the state officers left there wasn’t a whole lot of district business to conduct…We approved the minutes from the April meeting and the finance report, which included the receipt of five cents interest on our checking account…This was down from 13 cents…Then we discussed whether or not to resubmit our resolution that was rejected at June’s state convention.

I knew from experience that this could drag on and on, so I took steps to ensure this item was accomplished in a timely manner, which was what separates good commanders from bad commanders…The resolution concerns paying our district representative to the department executive committee – known as our DEC – a stipend if they travelled more than 150 miles to the DEC meeting…There was a lot of support for it at June’s state convention, but Legion resolutions have to be worded even more carefully than government treaties because it got shot down because it wasn’t worded properly…Stanko, who is also my district adjutant, talked about it for a few minutes and he could’ve gone on a while longer, which would’ve invited even more discussion, but I stepped in.

First, I thanked Stanko…Whenever a commander thanks you for speaking he is not only grateful you added to his general fund of knowledge, he is advising you your time to speak is over…I then I asked if anyone actually required the resolution to be read and everyone shook their heads no…Then I asked for a motion to rewrite and resubmit the aforementioned resolution and it was so moved and then seconded…There was no discussion and the motion passed unanimously, a five-minute evolution that without my guiding hand could’ve lasted a lot longer.

It was good seeing Lou again…He is the junior vice commander assigned to our district…He’s on the city council down where he lives and we talked about the upcoming election…He said he was glad to see a youngster like me getting involved…He did not say he would vote for me, tho…He’s pretty conservative and I may not have his vote and I know he has too much respect for our country merely to vote for me because he knows me…On the other hand, he didn’t say I didn’t earn his vote, and I didn’t ask.

There were only a couple of other items…Stanko gave a report on his trip to the national convention, which was mainly a review of the hotel and a couple of the posts shared some exciting things they were doing, like getting a new gun safe and whatnot.

What was almost interesting to find out is that the rifles we have for our firing squads are actually owned by the government…I am not entirely sure the circumstances of how we got them, but Stanko said we have to fill out a form every couple of years with the serial numbers and whatnot.

The next district meeting is in April at our small-town post.

The best part of the day was I didn’t have to go to work afterwards…Originally I was scheduled to…Well, originally, I wasn’t… A couple of weeks ago I had put in a day off form and the next day it was gone, but Tanya had scheduled me off Sunday and Monday anyway…All right…I go in last week and I was scheduled to work my usual morning shift today…Some schedule adjusting had me coming in after the meeting – I would’ve been there by 4pm or so – but Milena texted me and said we were very slow and don’t bother coming in.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either made up or are used fictitiously. Any other use 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, October 29
It’s dark when I leave for work in the morning now, so I am picking up my fave farm station out of the neighboring state…It’s on 880am and regular readers of this crap might recall sometimes does battle with the Navajo station out of New Mexico and a religious station from the coast, but today the farm station was almost crystal clear.

It must’ve been a pretty slow news day in the Heartland because the lead story was about the benefits of great northern beans…Evidently, the bean lobby paid for a study and the results suggest you can eat all the fat you want but as long as you eat some great northern beans regularly the damage will be mitigated.

This perked my interest because Pop Sparrow would make great northern beans and pork from time to time growing up…It was a rather plain meal – some boiled pork and beans was all it was, really – the type of plain meal I suspect Dad grew up on because he cooked with salt about as often as he cooked with arsenic.

Dad always raved about the meal, however…My late brother and I, tho, always thought boy, Grandma Sparrow was really mailing it in when she made great northern beans and pork…Maybe she had an afternoon snort or two while considering dinner options that day and said screw it, I’m only boiling water today…I only saw Grandma Sparrow a few times…She lived in the Midwest, and if you were making a movie and asked Central Casting for a typical small town, widowed Midwestern grandma, they would’ve sent Grandma Sparrow over.

Boy, it was Bachelor Night at the retailer last night…Recall the past couple of shifts there hadn’t been any decent bachelor purchases…Tonight tho, boy, every guy without a date waddled in…Since it’s the end of the month everyone was broke, too, so I moved a lot of the red package hot dogs and baloney, plus the 79-cent bread…The name brand hot dog buns appeared to be on sale, too, because I moved no small amount of those, too.

The Dateless Wonders also bought their share of ramen, much more ramen than macaroni and cheese, frankly, which I personally find disturbing, plus a lot of house brand soda and generous quantities of frozen pizza…One guy went thru the motions of buying some crap to clean the bathroom with, but I could tell it was just for show.

Some old neighbors at the cabins we rented before buying The Shire came thru my line…Gary and Melissa…Like others I know, they mentioned they voted for me, so the Sparrow For Congress juggernaut is up to three dozen votes now.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either made up or are used fictitiously. Any other use 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…

Friday, October 29
Took a phone survey today…The call came in on the seldom-used land line and asked, of course, about the coming election…I pressed the buttons required to register my support for the small party’s presidential and US Senate nominees, but maddeningly they didn’t ask about my Congressional race…Had they, I would’ve pressed three for Sparrow, but they didn’t.

I’ll tell you something, this race is completely under the radar…I cannot find any polling data anywhere, which is actually good…Polls, to my mind’s eye, can turn out to be self-fulfilling prophecies…I mean, you’re reading a poll saying Sparrow has no chance you’re probably thinking well, that’s that, Sparrow doesn’t have a chance…Most people don’t like to vote for someone who has no chance, so when they see it they’ll vote for someone the poll is telling them does have a chance.

I texted the lady who called yesterday…I told her I was not anyone’s expert on horse slaughter, but The Wife knows a fair amount I don’t think we need to go killing wild horses.

Jason at work told me he voted for me, and so did a couple of others…I think I’m up to over three dozen now…What I really like is when people send me pics of their ballot.

My first meeting as Legion district commander is Sunday!!!

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either made up or are used fictitiously. Any other use 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…

Thursday, October 27
Got a phone call from a voter today!!!…I am not making that up.

Actually, this is not completely unprecedented, tho my phone hardly rings off the hook…In fact, I have my personal cell number on the Sparrow For Congress site and I am not bothered too much and there have been zero crank calls.

Anyway, this lady said she agreed with me “almost down the line” and wondered what my position was on horse slaughter…I’d neglected to put one on my campaign site.

Well, honestly, I don’t really have one…Offhand, I would say I am against slaughtering horses and I am sure our government is involved somehow, but I don’t have all the details.

Filled out the background investigation packet for the detention deputy position in the next county today…It wasn’t too difficult, but at my age employment histories can drag on a bit.

Our takeout pizza experience at the local diner was a complete mess…We ordered a large, half the way The Wife likes it, half the way I like it…I go pick it up and bring it home it it’s not what we ordered…The whole thing is one big mess…So I take it back…They make me another one…I open before leaving and they screwed this up, too…The Wife’s half is OK, but mine is the same crap they made the entire first pizza with.

– Look,  I don’t what the problem is tonight, but this isn’t what I ordered, either.
– I’m sorry Mr Sparrow…We can refund your money or make you another one.

I thought about that for a second…I really didn’t want to wait another 20 mintues and The Wife’s half was what she wanted and my half wasn’t too screwed up, so I said no, I’d take this one.

DON’T TELL HER MAJESTY WE HAD PIZZA FOR DINNER!!!…WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE EATING THE MEAL PREPPED STUFF IN THE FRIG!!!

Thank you in advance.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either made up or are used fictitiously. Any other use 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, October 26
I meant to go to work today, but I didn’t actually get there.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from the undersheriff in the next county…They were testing for their detention deputy position today and could I make it???…It would probably be useful for you to know I wasn’t called out of the blue  I had applied for this position last week, more or less in a huff after Alice told me I had been passed over for the promotion at work.

Well, heck…This is a pretty good opportunity, so I called Alice and told her about and that we weren’t that busy and we had coverage at the front desk…She said she understood and to come in when I could…I got to work about 1pm, but they didn’t need me, so I left.

There were two parts to the test: a written test and, if you passed the test, an oral board.

The written test had four parts and was what appeared to be a standard test for entry-level police candidates…The first part consisted of math a cop would use on the job, stuff like the total value of stolen items and what not…I am not Isaac Newton, but I have pretty functional math skills and every answered I reckoned on the scratch sheet was on the answer sheet, so I think did pretty well there.

I know I did well on the other three sections. One had to do with determining which word was misspelled in a sentence or two, or which word best filled the blank space…The third section was reading comprehension and the fourth we actually had to write a sentence or two from questions based on another police report…All told it took an hour-and-a-half and we waited for another half-hour while the tests were graded…The undersheriff said she would come out in about a half hour with a list of oral board times for those who passed the test.

Five of us did…Mine was at 11:30 so I went and killed some time…First I went to the retailer here in the next county and bought some canned food yummies for the cat…Long time readers of this crap might well recall – or they may not – the next county retailer is the only place in the tri-state area to get the canned yummies our cat favors…They must be grain free and flaked…Not pate…Don’t get her the pate or she’ll crap all over house…I went to the library, too, and pretended to read a book and I was back at the Sheriff’s Office 15 minutes early.

I give really good interview…When I walked in the undersheriff introduced me to the detention lieutenant and before I sat down the undersheriff asked me to write three words on the white board that describe.

You gotta take the context into consideration when doing something like this…You want to write things that are relevant to the situation…Neither the undersheriff or the lieutenant would have been much interested in me writing “funny” “spatial” or “slothful” on the white board…Instead, I wrote:

Patient
Firm
Low-key

I give really good interview and both the undersheriff and lieutenant were disposed to like me…I’ve done interviews where the interviewer was not…One time I interviewed for a security job in town at a nice resort…I’ve got some pretty big league private security qualifications and I was more qualified for the interviewer’s job than he was…He knew this, too…It didn’t go well.

Anyway, the interview was very friendly and chatty…I was asked if I could pick one person – living or dead – to have lunch with who would it be and I said Lincoln and we talked about working casino security in Sin City and working for the Doily Delivery Company…At the end of the interview I was given a background questionnaire to fill out and told to have it back by next Tuesday.

We’ll see.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either made up or are used fictitiously. Any other use 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, October 25
The Wife and I did some vacuuming today…Regular readers of this crap know that vacuuming is really the only household cleaning skill I possess…I am so bad at other things The Wife even prohibited me from doing the lunch dishes because “there was something on a fork” the last time I did dishes.

We were pretty thorough…We took the rugs out back for a beating and swept and I vacuumed everything…Our cabin isn’t the biggest house in town so it didn’t take all day, but it’s nice having a clean floor.

Her Majesty reported she felt she did very well on the test I helped her study for last night…She said she is sure she got an A, tho she might have missed one tho she’s sure she nailed the extra credit question.

Her Majesty also made some granola bars…She can bake like her mother can bake and these were really good…Oats, assorted nuts and seeds all held together by honey and brown sugar…She actually made them for one of her classes at school, but she swore she’ll make some for us soonest…Her majesty ran the ingredients thru some online deal and the nutritional value was good, too, about what a commercial power bar has.

I may have put too much mayo in a sandwich…Actually, I did put too much mayo in a sandwich…This is rare…I usually put a lot of mayo in a sandwich, but I’m a mayo pro and never put too much.

Today I did…I had opened a can of tuna for a sandwich and I don’t know what the hell happened, but it ended up looking like soup…I suspect it was because I used a square plastic dish instead of a bowl to mix it in…That probably threw me off…Another tactical error was not putting another can of tuna in to even things out…I thought about it but got snitty and decided not to, so I had a pretty sloppy sandwich.

The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either made up or are used fictitiously. Any other use is a coincidence.

It was inspired by the 19^th century British novel of the same name.

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