The Diary of a Nobody/May 4

It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…

Tuesday, May 4
The big news is the left drawer was 20 cents off when I reported for duty…Now, those of you keeping score at home may be thinking that it doesn’t seem altogether easy for a cash drawer at the hotel to be 20 cents off and you’d be right because most cash transactions end in a denomination of 25 cents, but I counted both the dimes and nickels three times and they came out the same each time, so either they’re correct or ol’ Sparrow can’t count…I checked the top drawer in the back office because there is generally some loose change there you can utilize in this situation but there wasn’t today, so yours truly printed out the cash drawer spreadsheet (CDSS) showing the shortfall.

Like The Great One Mark, I highlighted the amounts (tho not the day, date or my name) on the CDSS and put a note in the logbook, deftly passing the matter off to someone else…It worked itself out, tho, because later I discovered a quarter underneath the back office desk (BOD) and took that to the drawer and put it in and taking out a nickel so it added up to $200…Then, because he’s thorough, ol’ Sparrow also corrected the (CDSS) and printed out a new one before crossing out and initialing the logbook entry.

Also, I hijacked Amy’s wake-up call and did one of my own, not because Amy’s was objectionable, but simply because I could…For some reason I enjoy, perhaps more than I should, introducing myself and announcing this is your wake-up call before saying in a voice that is probably not as deep as either thought or desired, good morning and then giving the forecast to include the estimated temperature for later in the morning, when the greeting would be heard…Prior experience as a radio announcer doesn’t hurt here, and yours truly can usually knock out a wake-up call in one take.

There was more confusion about whether the restaurant would be open for breakfast or not…Recall yesterday a cook showed up despite the fact the restaurant would be closed for breakfast and when I reported for duty Amy stated the restaurant would be opening for breakfast at 0700…Well, this was contrary to earlier reports that they would not reopen for breakfast until Wednesday morning at 0700…Now, you hate to doubt Amy, so I went and scoped out the restaurant’s cooler and BOOM, there’s a cart full of breakfast sacks in there, leading to the logical conclusion the restaurant would not be opening in the morning because why would they produce breakfast sacks if they weren’t going to be passed out in the morning???…A reason did not immediately present itself, so I made mental preparations to put out the breakfast sacks at 0615.

Then at 0600 the same zany cook as yesterday shows up, ready to start prepping breakfast…I laff and ask if he’s sure today and he laffs and says si (yes in English)so I go and open the restaurant for him…Later, a waitress shows up, confirming the restaurant is, indeed and thankfully, open for morning meals.

At 0500 there’s some music coming into the back office from the lobby…At first, you think it’s the usual music that plays 24/7 but then you realize it can only be that if the volume had been adjusted and the only person in position to do that is yours truly unless there’s a ghost in-house which, as we’ve noted in the past, there might well be.

So I waddle out to the front desk and the lobby is empty and offhand it’s tuff to tell where the music is coming from…So I close my eyes – sometimes useful in locating sounds – and narrow it down to the left computer area…The computer is not logged into anything, tho, and more listening further narrows it down to the left cash drawer…I’ve been knocking around hotel front desks an awful long time and have never heard of a cash drawer producing music but in the same spirit that must’ve driven Columbus across the Atlantic I open the drawer and there’s a phone in there with a Post-It that shows it was found in the lobby bathroom and plainly its 0500 alarm had gone off…I pick up the phone and shut the alarm off and BOOM, immediately it asks if I slept well…Just for funsies I hit ‘no’ because I’ve been at work all night and return it to the drawer.

Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1100 Tuesday until 2130 Tuesday…10.5 wonderful hours for the day and a splendid 32.0 hours for the week.

Fortified by being rather tired and the taking of some Zzzz-Sleep, ol’ Sparrow only woke up once to use the can, too.

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. 

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