August 24
You know, when I decided to rejoin the workforce after several years of doing nothing but officiating high school, youth and adult sports, I really didn’t want to work too hard. I could’ve gotten an insurance license and made money doing that, but that would involve schlepping around town and whatnot and who wants to do that? I really didn’t want to work too hard to earn a living, because I still wanted to officiate and write and lift weights and continue to live the generally quiet, low key life I’ve become accustomed to.
And, as should be obvious, I’ve pretty much succeeded in that.
But the past two nights have been, if anything, too easy.
Take tonight. Schempp and I decided to leave Guy and Redneck Randy alone because Guy likes to spend the night at the four-way and Redneck Randy more or less is joined at his hip and with Mark at the New York, New York garage that left Schempp and I to divvy up standing at the Monte Carlo/NYNY gate.
I took the first hour. At midnight Schempp relieves me and I go on patrol. I go use the can, then I go to Eddie – 2 and fill up the gate’s water cooler with ice. There’s a Sparkletts cooler in the shack there, but there isn’t power to the shack yet and we’re spoiled enough to want cold water on demand, so we keep the cooler filled with ice. I also spend 15 minutes chatting with Special Ed, who’s doing OT at Eddie – 1.
At 0100 I relieve Schempp. At 0200 he relieves me. At 0300 he relieves Mark in the garage and Mark and I go 482 and Redneck Randy takes the gate. At 0400 I relieve Redneck Randy and Schempp goes 482.
That was it. There were no calls. I would’ve worked just as hard had I stayed home and slept because I spent most of my time at the gate playing with a large squirt bottle. Mostly I would squirt bugs, but when there were no bugs around I would squirt the ground, either trying to squirt a certain area in as short a time as possible or pretending to be putting out a big fire. It varied. I have always enjoyed playing with squirt bottles.
A little after 0200 I’m in the valet parking lot behind where guests used to pick up their cars when I see Kim, the lady who feeds the Monte Carlo cats. You see a couple of cats running around from time to time, a white one with black spots and a scruffy looking black one. They used to live in the garage, but that’s gone now but Kim is still out there feeding them and she is pleased to report the kitties found their new feeding place. In fact, we could see Maddie, the black one, lurking under a nearby car waiting for us to wrap up our conversation and leave and after a few minutes, Maddie grows tired of waiting and walks out from under the car and stares us down and lets us know we are dismissed. We leave Maddie with two bowls of Friskies, a bowl of dry food and some water and when I come back later the Friskies are gone, but the dry food is still there.
