It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Monday, July 4
Chris was there when we reported for duty and he was fretting over the credit card machine on the left station, where he prefers to work at…The problem was it wasn’t working, with Chris reporting a guest tried to put his credit card in and tried a little too hard, pushing the machine off the counter and onto the front desk…Evidently, this was a tad more than the machine could tolerate because it went into self-protection mode, refusing all interaction with the human race: the screen went dark blue and in the top left corner was the word “Irruption” and above that one of those colon/dash/left parenthesis frowns [: – )]that appeared to be mocking us…To reinforce it wasn’t working, “Irruption” also appeared in a box in the center every few seconds.
Chris, pretty handy with computers, couldn’t figure this one out tho…He said he unplugged it and rebooted it to no avail and I wanted to ask him if he stared at hit crossly with his hands on hips, but didn’t because he wouldn’t get the reference.
Let me tell you something, not being able to process credit cards – Chris stated you couldn’t manually enter them, either – is like a restaurant without coffee cups: not much good to anyone…In the spirit of usefulness, yours truly called the processor’s helpline in the hope of getting the matter resolved before Tammy came in, but this was shot down immediately…The tech heard the code that was displaying and whistled, saying this could not be troubleshooted, that the unit would have to be replaced, and good luck getting that in by morning and all there was to do was jot down the case number and pass it on.
With the veterans service office (VSO) closed today for the holiday, there were a couple of options with regard to spending the day…Recall, key today was getting to bed around 1430 or so, the usual time we hit the sack on Mondays because, as noted, if we hit the sack too early, our treasured Tuesday Sleep Session (TSS) might be impacted.
First, was taking part in the 4th of July parade here in town…Our Legion post has had a float in the parade for a hundred years and we were all invited to either be on it (this year it was a trailer decorated up for the occasion) or walk alongside it…Afterward, there would be lunch – probably a pretty good spread, too – at the VFW and the installation of the officers for both the VFW and Legion posts…If we were still Legion district commander we would’ve been there, of course, because we would’ve been the installing officer, but we’re not anymore and, without the VSO today and Wednesday, we’re on record as wanting to enjoy a leisurely week at The Shire…Also, yours truly has yet to participate in the parade in over a decade here and saw no reason to start now.
So we headed home and the big news is yours truly was rather industrious upon arrival at The Shire…I am not making that up…Recall the lawn’s usual Thursday mowing was rained out and we’re cutting it high to begin with this season so it really needs a cutting…Not only that, Thursday’s forecast called for passing clouds and a one percent chance of rain and, crap, then we’re looking at two weeks without mowing and that’s unacceptable…Despite not much sleep Sunday, we were feeling pretty strong so BOOM, yours truly was out mowing the grass before 0800 and was done well before 0900.
Following this, we got the entire lawn watered and the big news is we used that fancy-pants sprinkler we got a couple of years ago for the whole thing…Usually, we use that small, round sprinkler from the 1950s that came with The Shire for the long stretch between the cabin and the weed store fence because it’s rather narrow, but recall the fancy sprinkler comes with an adjustable width and the narrowest setting fit the area rather well…Also, the reach on the fancy sprinkler is way longer than the old sprinkler, so we got more area done in a shorter time and probably saved water to boot, key in this economy…We’ve actually known this since we bought the fancy sprinkler, but we enjoy using the old one, and we’ll probably keep it in rotation from time to time, cost be damned.
Speaking of the weed store, it was closed today and why a weed store is closed on a holiday when stoners are probably even more interested in getting high was not immediately clear and while we were out farting around in the yard we saw three or four people walk up to the locked door and turn away.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1530 Monday until 2130 Monday…6.0 hours for the day and 11.0 hours for the week, not the greatest Monday total (MT) in history, but not too bad, either.
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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.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!