It’s Read Free Sunday (RFS) at The Diary.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, March 18
The big news at the hotel is that some genius – Chris is the leading suspect – actually velcroed the bell to the base of the sign!!!…I am not making that up…Good gravy, we stood and stared at – with our hands on our hips, of course – in amazement for a good 30 seconds…This is wonderful because the bell – a doorbell, actually – sometimes can be tuff to find but with it velcroed to the base of the sign BOOM this isn’t a problem; because the bell is secured to the sign, it cannot be lost…Unless the sign’s lost, of course…Then it would be ruff sailing, tho I suppose we could make a new sign and use the old bell.
The sign, with the bell velcroed to the base.
There were a couple of calls for rooms tonite and we had decent availability but there was a sign on the back office whiteboard advising the lowest possible rate we could offer to loser guests with no place to sleep was $350…This was a bit steep considering we had a dozen vacancies…Still tho, it is a weekend in ski season and we must keep up appearances…It was not, however, the Upset of the Year to find there were no takers…They were both guys and I don’t know if they were at a bar doing an immediate cost/benefit analysis (CBA) for a suitably drunk chick or if they simply didn’t want to spend the money…There was a time, of course, when ol’ Sparrow would’ve been swinging deals left and right here, but that time has passed.
There was a hotel envelope with my name on it in my box when we reported for duty tonite…Figuring if they were firing me they would’ve had someone here to work in my place, we opened the envelope without too much trepidation and there was $60 in it…I am not making that up.
We have some zero clue where this came from…Logically, it would seem to be a gratuity, but who in the hell leaves a nite auditor a $60 tip???…It could be a cash bonus from the hotel, but why not include a note in it and why give it in cash???…It doesn’t really matter and Tammy would later report it was a spiff from a local sporting goods company for ski rental referrals and regular readers of this crap know what current Sparrow policy (CSP) is on this matter: an immediate investment in Lucky 4 Life lottery tickets.
What we’re thinking this time around is playing our lucky numbers…We did some checking and they haven’t won in Lucky4Life yet, so they could be due and $60 would yield 30 drawings with our lucky numbers…But when we got to our convenience store the quick pick lure was strong and we ended up doing our lucky numbers and one quick pick for the next 15 drawings.
At 0550 this tall, flippant, annoying kid came in and announced he had a room for “today”…Well, everybody was in for tonite so I checked and it turned out he did have a reservation for later today…Regular readers of this crap know it is not reasonable to expect check-in at this hour, however, they also know ol’ Sparrow has done this before, for people whose first impression was, if not that of a suppliant, at least cordial with a dash of humility thrown in…This loser offered neither of those and some checking showed we did have a room available, so I offered the privilege of early check-in for a modest $300 fee, about half his rate…He declined this offer, however.
There was good strength at the gym tonite, a modest surprise because we woke up feeling not sore, but sort of stiff…As usual, we listened to ourselves: this was not a plea for a nite off, but rather a feeling that it would work itself out, so we headed into the small town gym (STG) in good spirits and we got the workout we wanted in, including five sets of lines, one more than yesterday.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Saturday until 1700 Saturday…8.0 hours for the day – a tad less than anticipated – and 51.5 hours for the week, a good total…God bless all of you.
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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!
