It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Monday, November 1
Right after reporting for duty this scruffy-looking guy comes up and asks about a late checkout…We already have a couple issued but it’s slow season and we’re far from sold out and I’m open to the matter and then the guy starts in on why…Seems he’s been staying here for a month because he was one of those involved in that big electrical fiasco at the mobile home park on the far side of town and his was one of the mobile homes that had burned down…He’s been with us the whole month on a charity’s dime but it runs out today and he would like to keep his options open because he has no idea where he will be staying Monday nite or who will be paying for it and he and his dog might well end up with no place to stay.
Of course, I asked if he was a vet and he said no and because he’s been there a month, with a dog, the room won’t be ready anytime soon, so a 1300 checkout was immediately authorized, and I instructed him to keep us posted in case he needed something later.
The end-of-month figures are in and it was a lousy month compared to October 2020, when the entire northwest part of the state was burning down, the snow hadn’t started and we were packed to the brim with firefighters…Here are the figures, in a 2021/2020 format:
Room Revenue: 262/416
Rooms: 2355/3458
Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR): $70/4117
It’s the first really down month we’ve had since the Virus Era began last spring, as I recall, and the forecast for November isn’t all that great, either.
There were a couple of laffs around 0100…This guy comes up with two Powerades – blue and red – and pulls out his card.
Was it a tuff call not getting green, or are these your go-to flavors???
Not a Line of the Year candidate, but it got the chuckle it deserved nonetheless…(Purple is actually his favorite, and he had just picked the first two he saw without really thinking too much about it…Then I notice the debit card: it’s all black on the front, the only markings “Tony” and a pic of a cat’s face in a scrawlish sort of font…I hold the card up, point at the “Tony” and utter what is a certified Line of the Year candidate:
What, does Tony have his own bank now???
It got a really good laff and the guy said no, his name was Tony and he got a funny off himself, noting the pic of the cat doesn’t look a thing like him.
Pretty slow at the veterans service office (VSO) today, tho Mr K did call…Recall him and his son came in last week and I signed him up for VA medical care and he said he had a phone call from the VA today, which is between two weeks and a month later than yours truly had said it would take…On further review, tho, it really wasn’t a surprise because we weren’t applying for VA medical coverage for Mr K so much as we were registering for it, because as a Vietnam vet presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange his acceptance was a foregone conclusion…Also recall he had served at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina when the drinking water was contaminated, I think by the base cleaners when stuff leaked into the ground…Or maybe it was poured directly into the water supply.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1400 Monday until 2100 Monday…7.0 hours for the day and a solid 14.0 hours for the sleep week.
I know all of you have noticed the 2100 wake-up times the past couple of nights…Exactly why ol’ Sparrow hasn’t slept straight thru to the 2130 alarm isn’t immediately clear, but anytime you’re waking up without the alarm you’re doing OK.
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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.
Gaylon’s books can also be found at The Reading Salon.