Yes, it is Read Free Sunday (RFS) at The Diary.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, July 15
There was no shortage of dummies for ol’ Sparrow to deal with at the hotel tonite.
First off was this flighty broad who called, lost somewhere in the hotel…She was trying, and failing, to describe some of the landmarks around her, all of which was useless, of course, because we hardly knew her room number…She prattled on as if we did and ultimately declared the whole episode “cute”, which was downright idiocy…We told her she’d have to come to the front desk, and she mumbled something incoherent, probably not uncharted waters.
She gets to the front desk and hands me her key, but we can’t merely toss out a room number without verifying who were giving it to and, fortunately, she has an ID and it’s a simple matter to verify she’s in 237…To make this as easy as possible for her, we write 2-3-7 in a key packet for her.
Now, some of you might be tempted to think that would have sufficed to keep her out of ol’ Sparrow’s hair for the rest of the night…Don’t think that…Ten minutes later she was back to advise our elevators didn’t go to the third floor, a pity because her room was 327…I am not making that up and by now were wondering how she ever got out of childhood with the usual credentials…We patiently reviewed her room number with her – in the same manner subtracting one from two might be explained to halfwit – and this sufficed to keep her away from me the rest of the nite.
The next wizard was the guy in 245 who came down to whine about his a/c not working properly…He had started his stay in 242 where the same problem had occurred and longtime readers of this crap know that these rooms are recently renovated, that is not particularly reasonable to expect two rooms to have the exact same problem and it wouldn’t be the Upset of the Year to discover this guy was a bonehead.
Still, tho, you can’t call a guest a bonehead and, of course, it’s possible, tho not real probable, that both a/c units were having problems…It’s late and he and his woman just want to get some sleep…Fair enuff, so we give him keys to 201 and five minutes later he comes back and reports that 201’s a/c is copping and attitude, too…So we head up and while we’re not Mr Freon it appears to be working normally…We report this and the guy says something or other and eventually declares everything to be OK and that he’ll stay in 245.
Another one for whom “flighty” is a spot-on description was this broad who called about 0300…She announced, after detailing her evening’s revels, that she had a reservation for Saturday and wanted to get a head start on the traffic and start out from the big city, tho her boyfriend would be driving because she’d had “stuff to drink”.
We’ve talked here about how oftentimes whether you get something out of me can depend on whether or not I like you…I like you, and the whole world of hotel wonders can be opened unto you…I don’t like you and BOOM, you are doomed to hotel purgatory…Well, this broad bored me with her nonsense but we’re paid to make the hotel a buck or two, so we quoted her a $150 early check-in fee, which is really making her bend over and whistle Dixie…She didn’t even blink, tho, readily agreeing to it, saying she’d see us around 0600 or so…(As it was, she and her man were here right a 0600 and we found ourselves feeling guilty about the $150 fee…Not guilty enuff to waive it, but we did lower it to a hundred dollars.)
There were others, too, including this wizard who simply wouldn’t stop asking questions we had already admitted to being unable to answer, and shift ended with one final genius…It was 116 calling from the bike race to advise they had left their dog in a crate in their room and could we have somebody walk by the room to ensure she wasn’t barking, making it sound like we had a K9 patrol awaiting such orders…This is a violation of hotel policy, which she should know because she signed a form acknowledging, among other things, that dogs were not to be left unattended.
Calling is stupid, too, because – and yes, this is an official Sparrow ProtTip from me to you – you do NOT call the front desk to herald that you are in violation of hotel policy…You might as well have announced you had left your blow on the nightstand and could we ensure housekeeping not go in and clean it up???
Not liking her tone, we asked her why she had left her dog unattended and, typical of these sorts, she rather brilliantly made it seem like this my fault…No, I’m sorry, not today, not after the Parade of Wizards we’d had all nite…We told her she should not have left Fido in the room by herself, tho we would have someone walk by her room from time to time, tho if the dog were barking, what exactly should we do about it???…Well, again making it sound like the weight of the world had just fallen on my shoulders, we should call her…We said OK and that was that.
Or so we thought…We were in the back office, clocked out, changed, and ready to go when the phone rang…Tammy was already on the phone so picked it up and it was 116 again just wanting “to catch up about my dog, wondering if she was barking?”…Christ, it had been five minutes since we talked to her, it was a busy morning but she seemed to think we already had somebody standing post…The easiest thing to do was to lie and give her the all-clear, so that’s what we did, even tho we’re not liars at heart.
After a great rest (see Sleep Log below) it was a strong workout…Except for the fact we are tired soon after workout, we’re all recovered from the three extended periods of little or no sleep.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Saturday until 1830 Saturday…9.5 hours for the day and 47.5 hours for the week, a sub-par total, but a strong finish nonetheless.
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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!
