It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Wednesday, September 13
Well, well, well…Mark mixed up the Cash Drawer Spreadsheet (CDSS) for the right drawer – ol’ Sparrow’s home drawer – tonite, the first change in CDSS accents in a month…Recall it’s been black ink with orange highlighter for both drawers recently, but tonite Mark – a complete maniac at heart, evidently – used blue ink for his signaure on the right CDSS!!!
I am not making that up…The accents for the left drawer’s CDSS remained the same, tho, and with the equinox coming up, I know we’re all wondering what combinations Mark might use this fall, if he changes it up at all.
Mark, always dependable, caught himself forgetting to do something…There were several arrivals when we reported for duty, including some state wildlife workers in town for some conference that still had to show up…Procedure here is to have credit cards authorized early in the shift, especially key on sold out nites like tonite, so the original reservation can be canceled and the rooms sold…Mark, tho, forgot to until right before he left, and it turned out both cards went thru, which is good because only one person came in requesting a room and that would’ve left us one short of a sellout.
That lone walk-in was a woman in her 30s who was clutching a backpack and was crying…This was sad because she wasn’t crying out of happiness over how splendid things were going with her man…She didn’t look like she had been smacked around – or was covering up having been smacked around – but she was sad and me telling her we were sold out certainly didn’t help matters.
There was some moderate action at the veterans service office (VSO) today, our last time in the office until the 25th thanks to state VSO training next week…There was a phone call from Rob, who called to whine that the rats at the VA hospital south of here had turned him down for VA medical because he made too much money and we said yeah, that happens and we asked how much he made and he said, honestly, that he didn’t know and we thought yeah, if you don’t know how much you make you might well make too much to qualify for VA medical…Further interrogation on our part, tho, revealed he had been in the Air Force in ‘Nam, had spent a lot of time on flight lines without hearing protection, and was going deaf…Well, we told him, you don’t VA medical for that, we can file a claim and the VA will provide an audiogram and then make a decision and we made an appointment for when we got back.
We also got a phone call from Eric, who is the Southeast Regional VSO and is the acting Northwest Regional VSO…He wanted to know ol’ Sparrow’s plans for attending state training and he said the state office wanted us to start putting our monthly report on the new form that was included in the new Polices and Procedures (P&P) manual that had been sent out over the summer.
Well, we told him we’d be attending VSO training virtually, but that we also worked graveyard and might not make all of Tuesday’s session…We added we hadn’t seen the new P&P manual, tho it was entirely possible we missed it, which we had because it turned up in our email from late July…So we went sifting thru the P&P Manual and it was tuff finding anything whatsoever:
Eric, there are no goddamn page numbers here??
You don’t usually like to swear in the workplace, but Eric was in the Corps and we, of course, rode smoke boats – where violating the Second Commandment served a variety lexiconic functions – and it’s an accepted and treasured part of the camaraderie of the service…For his part, Eric laffed and said yeah, he knew, and eventually we found the new CV26 form and told him we would use it from now on.
Recall a couple of weeks ago we met Julie and Bill, Bill being an old Army vet who lived in squalor and Julie being a saint who helped him do things…Well, we transported them to Bill’s doctor’s appointment today…Bill was in good humor – never a given – and while he gives the impression of being crackers, his directions were as accurate as they were lucid.
We had some time to kill, so Julie and I went across the street to a coffee joint that, it turned out, she had owned a couple of owners ago…This professional coffee experience (PCE) would prove useful because while she got some relatively simple expresso deal, our request for something decaf was a tad more problematic.
– Oh, something decaf for me…
– You mean like, *&$#(_#???
It was coffee gibberish; we had some zero clue what he said and we looked to Julie for translation…She stepped in, talking some sort of coffee code (CC) to the kid, who nodded knowingly.
– So something Americano???
Julie looked at me for approval…We had no idea what Americano meant and stared at her like a dolt tho we were able to mumble something about as long it was decaf it was OK and she nodded told the kid Americano would be fine.
As it was, it turned out to be as lousy a cup of joe as we’ve ever had, as bad as anything the Navy ever produced, not to mention the crap that was put out at the old employee entrance post at Monte Carlo security…We were grateful for this, tho, because it allowed us to use one of our all-time fave (ATF) lines on Julie, telling her that after it cooled off we could put it in our car for increased engine performance.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: As usual for Wednesday, there is no sleep to report today.
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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!
