It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Friday, July 20
Return Engagement
Those two kids from last nite with the dad they conned into buying them Hershey bars were back tonite…Both kids were zipping around the lobby this time, and we’re thinking fabulous, the kids are running around like they’re on crack and they’re going to get their nightly sugar fix…This gave us reinforcement for our decision not to reproduce.
Of course, they got their sugar fix: last nite we established dad was powerless in the matter of pre-beddy-by snacking…This time, tho, they went with two Twix bars and zero Chex packages.
Highway News
Around 0300 a kid checks in and it turns out he’s on his meal break from that paving project going on between here and the small town…We run into it heading into the hotel and the hospital five nites a week, tho last week there weren’t any delays at all…Well, the kid said they ran out of “stuff”…He didn’t specify what the “stuff” was, but you don’t have to be the Secretary of Transportation to strongly suspect it was that black stuff that comes in pebbles they stack in the center of the road before a big truck comes and flattens it and turns into pavement.
– We left early every nite, last week, too…And we were really early for work every nite.
He laffed and said they should be good now and, because we asked, he noted the project should be done by the middle of next month.
The kid had a last name we’d never encountered before, either…It began with a P, and there was a ph in there, too…We asked about it, and he said it was some sort of German and French amalgamation that had been shortened considerably when some ancestor went thru Ellis Island…He pronounced the extended name for us, and we whistled – or tried to whistle; we can’t really whistle – because it was long and probably a mouthful even in German and/or French.
The Complaint Department
There have been infrequent lack of hot water complaints recently…Communication here is all but non-existent, so we’re not completely sure what the deal is, tho earlier this summer we heard the entire water heating system was being replaced with something “tankless”…We have some zero clue what that means, of course, tho some research showed it is exactly what it says it is: on-demand hot water, with regular water passing thru some sort of gadget that heats it immediately…We first heard this earlier this summer, tho, so nothing is happening right now.
Personnel News
We saw the Front Desk Supervisor (FDS) for the first time in a couple of months this morning, because Keenan is off on another vacation, and we’re pretty strapped…We talked to him about his request we work on Tuesday the 11th next month…We had told him we could, but there’s training at General Hospital that Monday, so we could either work Monday nite or Tuesday nite, but not both…It turns out, tho, he doesn’t really need us that nite anyway, another admirable example of Hotel Non-Communication (HNC).
The big news, tho, is tonite is Pierro’s last nite…I am not making that up…The FDS said he is going to be the Housekeeping Manager at a joint on the mountain…Good gravy, talk about shorthanded…There is now Keenan and Robert and the FDS and AGM Tammy to man the front desk, and the FDS and yours truly work seven graveyard shifts, so there is very little coverage for day and swing shifts…In an effort to be helpful, we offered to do the nite audit on every other Tuesday, or we could stay until 1000 or 1100 on Tuesday mornings…We could actually do that every morning, but we don’t want to go crazy and start affecting gym time…I mean, staffing issues are hardly my fault…Ol’ Sparrow will do what he can, but let’s not go overboard here.
Gym Report
Considering it was Monday – usually fairly busy – the gym was all but deserted tonite…There were few people and no classes and, distressingly, no women to look at…We got three 10-minute sets of deep breathing in, plus neck work.
Looking Ahead
We have our first nite off in a couple of weeks Tuesday and, of course, we have big plans that regular readers of this crap know are unlikely to happen…We want to go to the next county for some stuff at the retailer and to treat ourselves to a meal at the Mexican joint…We also need some stuff in town before heading out, including some supplements at the health food store and some decent booze.
Recall a while ago – in a stupid money-saving measure designed to counteract high gas prices – we bought some really cheap whiskey…Now, it works OK for our patented whiskey sours, but it tastes like a pesticide strait…The liquor store that has our fave Green Label scotch opens at 0900, so we will be there…A couple of shots will go down great on our nite off, especially since our hot, new swamp cooler will be in, so we’ll have a nice cool room for Bandit and me when we report to the chair for reading duty.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log:
1030 Monday until 1730 Monday…7.0 hours for the day and 14.0 hours for the week, a bit better than average.
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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.
The Diary of a Nobody was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
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