The Diary of a Nobody 2013/2014

140 The Diary of a Nobody

far southeast as we are northwest…Stanko, who’s driving and has
been there before, says it’s about an eight hour drive.

I have already arranged that Friday off from work…We’ll head
down Thursday after the route…Stanko owns a ranch and you just
can’t let the cows starve and he said his wife will be out of town and
he’s hoping one of his kids will be able to stop by.

Thursday June 5
Started looking into buying a house again…We came really close

to buying one last year, but the flood insurance bill was out of sight
and we withdrew our offer.

It was funny…We live in one of this planet’s great mountain ranges
and the flood insurance premium was the same if we had been looking
at a house built on stilts in the Fiji Islands.

So the goal is to not spend a ton of cash beforehand if we don’t
have to….Last time we were out over a thousand dollars before the
deal fell thru and I want to avoid that if at all possible.

Friday June 6
Umpiring tomorrow…I don’t really want to umpire this weekend,

but there are no campaign stops planned and all game fees are going
to Sparrow For US Senate.

Saturday June 7
Three youth baseball games today…I am sufficiently advanced

that I do not gain a whole lot of valuable experience umpiring youth
baseball, and I was out there today solely because all proceeds from
this weekend are going to Sparrow For US Senate.

This makes me, as we say in the trade, a whore.
Well, and they really need umpires up here. Gary, who I worked
with Memorial Day, and I are the only adult umpires in town…Well,
there is Todd, but Todd can’t run right now and has the mobility of a
post, so he’s out.
My partner today was actually Todd’s kid, Billy…Billy is the stud
centerfielder on our Post baseball team, and he’s been picking up
some extra cash umpiring youth baseball for a couple-three years

June 2014 141

now…He’s not Umpire of the Year, but this isn’t the World Champion-
ship, either, so what the hell.

Hell, my main concern was Billy not tax himself too much because
the Post baseball team has a big doubleheader tomorrow and we don’t
need him weary because he umpired three games today…Billy can flat
out hit – as they say in the game – and we are going to need him if we
are going to make the state tournament later this summer.

The tournament director had let it be known he wanted warnings
the first time we called a balk…Oh boy, I did not approve of this at
all…One, there is no provision in the rule book for this at all…A balk
is a balk and every one, even the first one, is enforced and there are
no warnings.

And you think about it a bit, you can see the problem…Do you
warn every pitcher for the same infraction???...Does each pitcher get
one warning for every possible type of infraction???...Who the hell
knows???…This is a bunch of nonsense if you ask me, and I made it
clear at the plate meeting that there would be one warning for each
infraction, and the warning for the first pitcher was good for all sub-
sequent pitchers on both teams…Since I said this with an air of com-
mand that would’ve caused Hitler to achieve and maintain a state of
arousal, the coaches had no choice but to go along with it.

Sunday June 8
Mr Rain reared his ugly head today, so I only had to umpire a bit

more than one game.
My partner today was Tristan, who is all of 16…Gary told me he

was a good kid who had been Little League for him for a couple of
years, and he was interested to see what I thought of him.

We had the first two games, and Gary and I were going to do the
last one and when Tristan drove up he said, rather shyly, he hadn’t
ever worked a 14-year-old game behind the plate before didn’t think
he would do a plate today.

Well, I quickly disabused him of a variety of notions…The first one
was that ol’ Sparrow was going to do two plates today…The other was
that he was not qualified to work the plate for a baseball game featur-
ing 14-year-old kids…Look, this isn’t the world championship, and if

142 The Diary of a Nobody

you are breathing you are probably pretty qualified to work the plate
in this tournament.

As it was, Tristan is a pretty good umpire, especially for a kid…He
had a good attitude, too…Willing to hustle and learn and that is half
the battle when you are just starting out.

We had some time to kill so we went and got a soda between
games…Well, I got a coffee, Tristan had a soda…I took a selfie for Selfie
Sunday and Tristan said he played on the high school lacrosse team
that made the semifinals of the state tournament.

The only problem was the rain came in between games one and
two and we only got a couple of innings of game two in before we called
it…It was so bad the 4pm game was cancelled, too.

Monday June 9
Our quest to buy a home continued today as I got us pre-qualified

for a home loan today…I did some figuring and if I can get a good deal
on a car, we can buy a house and a car for more or less what we are
paying in rent on our cabin right now.

The Wife took our friend Ann to drive around town and, not too
coincidently, they drove by the house I had looked at with Jim the
Realtor last week…The Wife reported they had cut the grass and gen-
erally straightened up outside and the house was “the American
dream”.

Tuesday June 10
So yesterday I’m driving the doily truck and this girl is on a street

corner waiting for the light to change and she sees us and pumps her
arm up and down, which I hadn’t seen in years and which is, of
course, the universal kid request for a trucker to honk his horn.

I completely missed it, though Brian picked up right on it and
scolded me for not complying with the universal kid request, tho he
added our horn wasn’t for shit and she probably wouldn’t have heard
it…For my part, I pledged to use our siren the next time we came
across kids wanting me to honk our horn.

June 2014 143

It happened today!!!...I am not making that up…We’re heading
into town and there is a group of kids at the bus stop next to the
bowling alley and we’re tough to miss coming down the street and in
fairly short order most of them are not only pumping their arms but
jumping up and down, too.

I’m right there, like an actor nailing his cue…I hit the siren, which
is really loud and the kids are ecstatic…Brian was amazed we ran
across the same situation the very next day…I told him I had special
powers.

We were making historically good time today and were on track to
get home a couple of hours ahead of schedule but goddamned Route
22 broke down early on and was three hours behind schedule, so we
had to drive two hours to meet them instead of one hour and all in all
we got home at about our usual Tuesday time.

We whined about it, of course, but it was a pleasure to go and help
Route 22…Lord knows they’ve helped us often enough…Still tho,
when Aaron radioed us mid-afternoon to ask if we could come and
help I thought of asking him what has he ever done for us which is, of
course, a lot, but while Aaron is kinda funny he is not reigning Come-
dian of the Year so I kept my yap shut…When we were transferring
our stuff I casually mentioned what I had thought of saying, wonder-
ing what the chances were Aaron would’ve thought that funny…Aaron
thought about it a second and advised at the time of our chat his
irritation level was “High” and t.he chances of him finding my line –
which is actually kinda funny – laughable was, officially, “Low” and
keeping my yap shut was a good idea.

Bonser emailed and said the first Sparrow For US Senate online
town hall meeting is scheduled for Thursday at 7pm…He said he
hoped I didn’t have anything planned and could make it.

Wednesday June 11
Recall I am going to the American Legion state convention in a

couple of weeks…That Saturday our Post baseball team has a double-
header scheduled…Gary and I usually work these but I won’t be
here…I emailed Gary to see if he knew of anyone who could fill in

144 The Diary of a Nobody

because I’d for him to work two games by himself and he said he’d
look into it.

Thursday June 13
Had the first Sparrow For US Senate town hall meeting to-

night…We didn’t promote it on Facebook or Twitter in order to keep
the crowd down because it was the first one and Bonser said every-
thing always goes wrong the first time so let’s keep expectations low.

He was right!!!...There were glitches…Viewers could see and hear
me, but I could not see anyone using their webcams and I could only
hear one of the dozen or voters who tuned in…The chat function
worked fine, though at one point the screen started doing whatever
the hell it wanted.

Still, though, it was useful…I was asked about my views on immi-
gration…I said, the only approach is a practical one… Laws must
reflect the way we live…They’re here…We were unable to keep them
out and we certainly can’t send them back and ensuring they are no
longer criminals is in everybody’s best interest.

I do not favor giving them citizenship, though, merely a legal ave-
nue to allow them to live and work here.

Friday June 14
On the route today Brian dropped a mini donut on the floor…He

asked me if I had visual on it I looked over and said sure, it’s right
under his driver’s seat and I told him I’d get it for him if he wanted to
eat it...He shook his head no.

Partner, it’s the five minute rule…It hasn’t been down there five
minutes yet.

Not in this truck.
Brian had a point…The inside of our truck is not only kind messy,
but dirty, too, since we are tramping in and out of it five days
week…At the branch they have a service come in and clean the trucks,
but we don’t have that up here and cleaning the truck is our respon-
sibility.

June 2014 145

We are usually derelict in that duty…Neither Brian and I are that
neat, frankly, and our tolerance of a mess is pretty high…He was prob-
ably smart not to eat a donut that had spent even a split second on
our truck’s floor.

Still no word on an umpire for our Post baseball team’s June 21
doubleheader, tho Gary said he’s in contact with basically every um-
pire in the western part of the state…He assured me someone will turn
up.

Saturday June 15
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Sorry the cat was standing on the keyboard while trying to eat the
custard pie The Wife made for our anniversary dinner…We’ve only
been married three (3) years, and The Wife celebrated with her famous
fried chicken which I was having for the first time despite knowing her
for seven (7) years and which I will probably never see again.

I got a look at the agenda for the Legion state convention…It looks
like typical convention stuff – the receiving of reports and whatnot –
and we are holding elections for statewide officers Saturday…Stanko
the Adjutant says the district our Post belongs to will have a couple of
resolutions on the table, too…One concerns encouraging the national
organization to let all veterans in and not just those who served during
qualifying wars and the other is eliminate the state bylaw mandating
each Post have at least members.

Allowing all veterans to join the Legion would help membership,
because it has been dwindling for many years as members die and
young veterans aren’t really joining in the numbers are parents
joined…There was a lot of discussion of this at the last district meeting
and I, personally, don’t favor it, but what the hell.

Wednesday June 18
I started packing for the Legion state convention today…The Wife,

being funny, wondered what I would be forgetting this trip.

146 The Diary of a Nobody

It’s a valid question because I am usually good for forgetting some-
thing on trips like this, usually toiletries, but also underwear, a
charger and reading material have been forgotten, too.

We also discussed where we are staying.
The host hotel is called the Cow Palace.
So what kind of dancing girls do they have there?
Oh, it will be dancing girl central, honey…
The classic Sparrow pause.
…all us men are having our Viagra drop-shipped directly there to
avoid having it pass through the house.
It was a good line and got a good laugh from The Wife…I don’t
know if it will end up being Line of the Year, but it is a good line.

Thursday June 19
Good gravy that was a long drive, featuring traffic in the big city,

too!!!...Stanko picked me up and we headed out about 2:30pm and I
wasn’t in my room at the Cow Palace until just after 10pm.

The umpiring conundrum solved itself…Recall the Post baseball
team had two games scheduled for Saturday but the other team didn’t
have the games on their schedule…I’m not entirely sure how in thee
hell this happens…I mean, one coach calls another and says “hey, you
wanna come up and play some ball on this goddamned date at this
specific time?” and the other coach says sure.

Gary said he had drummed up someone, and older gent who had
done some Little League for him ages ago, so we would’ve been covered
and it’s too bad my team loses out on two games.

Friday June 20
I don’t think I forgot anything!!!...I’m about to head out for the

morning session and I did not forget toiletries or underwear or my
uniform shirt or, and this key, my Legion cap, which has a brand new
COMMANDER pin on it.

Conventions of this sort are not as exciting as you might
think…They introduced an awful lot of people, like past state com-

June 2014 147

manders and stuff in the morning, including the National Com-
mander, and there were some speeches and in the afternoon we re-
ceived some reports.

The good news is nothing took all that long…The morning session
started at nine and ended at 11, when we recessed until one thirty -
and any organization that takes two-and-a-half hour lunches is OK
with me – and the afternoon session was over well before four, so
nothing was particularly taxing.

We went to the BBQ that night, a fundraiser for someone running
for a national office…Lou joined us…Lou is a state vice commander
and he comes up for our District meetings and he’s a pretty good
guy…He was talking about the Memorial Day ceremony they do down
where he lives and he said they have doves flying around at the
end…They’re released and fly a couple of times around the cemetery
before flying back home…Immediately I was filled with
envy…Doves!!!...I mean, we do a really nice Memorial Day ceremony
that draws more than a few tears but we don’t have doves…I made a
mental note to tell Stanko to look into doves for next year.

Stanko says the real excitement begins tomorrow when we start
electing officers and stuff.

Talked to The Wife…She said she went to some cattle dog compe-
tition that was in town…She drug me to this crap last year and I was
glad I was out of town for this year’s edition.

Saturday June 21
The election of new officers was on the agenda for today…Most of

it was routine, but two people were running for senior vice commander
and there is only one Senior Vice Commander…This is different than
the Junior Vice Commander position, where we can elect as many as
want to run, up to six.

Each post has a certain number of votes depending on size and
our Post had six votes and it was my job as Commander to vote
them…Stanko wanted his votes to go for A and I liked A, too, but B
would’ve made a nice senior vice commander, so I gave four to A and
two to B…I told Stanko this was a raw display of my authority as
Commander.

148 The Diary of a Nobody

Stanko was right when he said people get dressed up for
this…There were plenty of people in suits and blazers and others, like
us, wearing the Legion uniform shirt and everyone had some sort of
Legion shirt on and, of course, we all had our caps.

The banquet at night was pretty nice…I wore my gray suit and
Stanko wore his tacky blazer and dinner was ham and scalloped po-
tatoes and some veggie I ignored because The Wife wasn’t there to
make me eat it.

Sunday June 22
We blew off the closing ceremonies and headed home about

8am…We took a different route that was probably a half-hour longer
but had the benefit of not only being more scenic, but also being brand
new to Sparrow, which I was grateful for.

Our district introduced a couple of resolutions, both of which were
shot down…The first concerned dropping the provision that required
posts to maintain at least 15 members…We introduced this because
there is a small town in our district that cannot do that, but it was
pointed out the bylaws had a provision that allowed for waivers, so
this was voted down.

Our resolution recommending the national organization allow all
veterans to join instead of only those who served during wars was
defeated, too…Stanko assured me we lost no face going 0-2.

Also, Stanko’s been in the Legion since the Revolution and knows
everybody and he did a very good job of introducing me around.

Let me tell you something, after two eight-hour drives in a passen-
ger seat, two days sitting thru a convention and three nights in a bed
that was softer than a non-conference college football schedule my
back was a complete fiasco…It was sore and it made my legs
tired…Fortunately, I have a good wife and she did some yoga stretches
that whipped my back right back into shape, which enabled me to get
my first good night’s sleep in three nights.

June 2014 149

Monday June 23
Our offer for the house was accepted!!!...I am not making that

up!!!...It was actually accepted over the weekend…This was our sec-
ond offer on the house…The first was more or less accepted, but it
was pretty low and Jim the Realtor said if they took they would not
pay for any inspection discrepancies that came up, so we upped it a
bit and they took it.

There’s a lot to do…I was on the phone this morning with the bank
that pre-qualified us and told them we had a contract and we received
preliminary approval for our loan and I got Jim our earnest money
check and I still have to get an insurance quote and line up an inspec-
tion and a lot of other things.

The Wife is very pleased.

Tuesday June 23 – Sunday June 29
Apologies for a slumming with a weekly recap…This week has

been a complete whirlwind.
I went without coffee for the better part of the week…In retrospect

I have some zero clue why I went without coffee for the better part of
the week because I was exhausted for two of these days, but I think it
might’ve had something to do with some headaches I’d been having
lately which actually went away when I took some over-the-counter
allergy medication…I pledge never to subject myself to the non-coffee
nightmare again…Even my sainted mother, living in retirement in Cal-
ifornia, wondered what in the hell I was doing.

We are still on track to buy the house!!!...I spent most of Sunday
6/29 filling out the mortgage application and attendant paper-
work…Finding our tax returns for the past couple of years was a pain
in the neck and we ended up getting copies from the preparers, which
we probably should’ve done anyway because it would have saved Mr
and Mrs Sparrow considerable effort, tho the good news is looking for
them turned up several tubes of serviceable ChapStik and a half-
dozen ear plugs, which I use when I sleep…Why they were found in
the downstairs bookcase still isn’t clear…The cat denied having any-
thing to do with it, however.

150 The Diary of a Nobody

The big news is I washed my pen again…This was the third or
fourth time my Parker Jotter has been thru the wringer and each time
it is still usable…This hasn’t always been the case with Jotters, but
this one is a trooper, coming back strong wash after wash…Good
thing, too, because you can’t buy them everywhere anymore, only at
a major office supply retailer that closed it’s store in town last month.

Reffed ten basketball games, too, this week, five (5) each Thursday
and Saturday…There was a high school tournament in town and the
games have a running clock so they generally last less than hour, de-
pending on how many time-outs coaches call.

One of the timers, a nice, pretty high schooler, was eating a sand-
wich between games…I asked her what kind of sandwich and she said
turkey, adding it had neither mayo or mustard…I pretended to be
shocked and the girl – her name was Carly - shrugged saying that was
the way mom was making sandwiches today…Carly added that given
her choice, she’d prefer her turkey sandwiches with mayo…I added
The Wife had sent me out the door with a scrambled egg sandwich,
which, naturally, led to a rather dull discussion of fried egg sand-
wiches.

I actually double-booked myself Saturday…Our Post baseball
team had an 11am doubleheader that I had assigned myself to and,
of course, I had accepted five basketball games on Saturday and ol’
Sparrow can’t be two places at once and it took some maneuvering to
arrange for Todd to do the baseball games…Todd was also working
the basketball tournament and I actually took one of his morning
games so he could make the baseball games…I tried to get out of the
basketball games because I’m Post Commander and I wanted to see
my team play, but Chris said he was really, really short of officials for
Saturday and I would be going to hell if I turned them back.

The tournament was not to be confused with the high school
playoff games I did earlier this year…Only two of the ten games re-
quired a moderately high level of officiating and the rest received what
I like to call an appropriate level of hustle.

I am currently reading Master of the Mountain, a brilliant book fo-
cusing on Thomas Jefferson the slave owner. I’m fairly well-read about
Jefferson and, of course, no serious works on Jefferson ignore the fact

June 2014 151

he owned slaves, but this is the first book that focuses solely on slav-
ery at Monticello and Jefferson’s role in it.

Jefferson was not the benevolent slave master some would like to
believe…He worked his slaves hard, allowed them to be disciplined
when required and provided rations that could charitably be called
‘meager’ for anyone, much less those toiling from sun up to sun down.

It’s thoughtful reading…You grow up taught that Thomas Jeffer-
son wrote all men are created equal and was freedom’s great spokes-
man. Sure, we’re told, he owned slaves but that’s what white planters
did back then, they owned slaves.

But despite writing all men are created equal Jefferson only freed
a handful of slaves over the course of his long life and he lived very
well because of them.

We’ve been barbecuing a lot this season…Last night we did ham-
burger patties, which we are eating without buns this summer, and
The Wife made a salad with greens exclusively from her private gar-
den, which isn’t easy to do when you live in a rental cabin…The salad
tasted like it came straight from the garden which, of course, it
did…The Wife also sautéed some bell peppers in assorted colors, with
onions, and she threw in some tasty seasonings, too.

Monday June 30
The house we are going to buy had its inspection today…The Wife

was there and this was her first look inside the house and she said
there will be some work required to make it perfect, but she liked it.

The tenant, Butch, reported the house has been on and off the
market for the a couple-three years and this was the first inspection
on it…The Wife said the house generally in good repair, tho it’s fairly
old for Pete’s sake and does have some issues.



July 2014

Tuesday July 1
Got an email from Christopher the Mortgage Guy while on the

route…Recall I had spent most of Sunday filling out the mortgage ap-
plication and other paperwork and it was all shipped out Monday and
Christopher the Mortgage Processor had gotten it Tuesday.

I was kinda nervous because the whole shebang came out to a bit
under 150 pages and what if I screwed something up, not an unrea-
sonable thought with ol’ Sparrow.

I didn’t…Christopher the Mortgage advised he was delighted to re-
port he had received and reviewed our paperwork and everything was
in order and why didn’t he just send this along for further review and
approval???...I was relieved and so was The Wife when I told her.

Brian and I ended up pulling more than a double today…16 hour
Tuesdays happen from time to time in the winter, but in the summer
they are rare and we got home a full three hours later than last Tues-
day.

It was a mess from the start…Stops took longer than normal and
Brian tweaked his back so he was going at more or less my speed but
what really held us back…Then the geniuses at the branch sent Route
25 out without a goddamned fuel card so they had no way to buy fuel
and they didn’t have enough to meet us in Town B, obliging us to go
all the way to Town A, where we usually go on Fridays twice, which
added another two hours.

In addition to the usual countless insects we kill this time of year,
I managed to knock off three animals yesterday…Well, two were Con-
firms, a bird and a porcupine, and another bird is, officially, only a
Possible, tho if it is still chirping after doing battle with our front
fender it is Super Bird.

I feel bad about this, but it’s not as if I go looking for them.

154 The Diary of a Nobody

Wednesday July 2
Well, hell.
We withdrew our offer on the house today…The inspection report

came back and the place is a complete rathole…Utterly and com-
pletely…We were expecting a fixer-upper, but there were over 50 pages
of crap that was either out of code or had deferred maintenance that
wasn’t visible when we walked through it and it looks like the current
tenant won’t have to worry about moving anytime soon.

Oh well…There are other houses available and we’ll look into
them…I told Jim the Broker to tell the other broker I will be happy to
sell them a copy of the inspection report.

Thursday July 3
A long day today…We have Friday off so all the Friday stuff had to

be done today…They tried to get us to work Saturday, too…The down-
town Doily Dispensing Machine will get a lot of use and we usually fill
it up Tuesdays and Fridays and Kyle – one of 17 people we appear to
work for at the branch – said they were going to send up extra doilies
we would store at the bank and add Saturday.

Officially, I “Disliked” this plan because I don’t want to work Sat-
urday but it was academic anyway because Brian is out of town and
one person cannot fill a DDM…You have to have two.

Friday July 4
The Wife drug me out of bed early this morning…Or she would

have had I not already been up because I have to go the bathroom at
4:30 every morning now.

After a traditional 4th of July breakfast of her Famous Chicken
Salad, we headed to the local gym, which is actually a very nice health
club, complete with hot springs, where The Wife is working off our
memberships by gardening and she put me to work watering the flow-
ers.

88 hours of The Wife’s labor gets both of us a year’s membership,
which saves us about $800 a year, which is worth 88 hours of The
Wife’s labor if you ask me.

July 2014 155

Then we walked a couple of blocks to the parade downtown.
Look, I’m as patriotic as the next guy…I served our country hon-
orably in our Navy and I still serve in the Legion, but this was a lousy
parade, even by small town standards. There more entries featuring
chain saws (2) than marching bands (0) and every other entry tossed
out candy for the kids – not to mention The Wife – which caused a
complete fiasco and I wasn’t too broken up when after an hour so The
Wife announced she’d had enough and we left.
Some Post members who own horses rode in the parade, carrying
the colors at the beginning…I was kinda jealous, but I don’t own a
horse, so I can’t really complain.

Tuesday July 8
Bonser and I talked about my campaign talk this weekend…It’s

with a group called the American Conservatives of Color…Bonser said
he lined it up because if spend all out time preaching to the Minor
Party choir we’ll get one percent of the vote…Bonser said if we are
going to make a difference Election Day we’re going to need support
from everyone and you never know who might be at what meeting so
let’s go talk to anyone who will have us.

Wednesday July 9
Got a new laptop today…The old one was not starting on a regular

basis, which is kind of its job, so I forked over a new base model HP…I
did manage to get the old one to start so I could save the really im-
portant stuff to a cloud, but that wasn’t too difficult, even for me.

I get about three years out of a laptop, which I am pretty pleased
with, which I don’t think is too bad.

Thursday July 10
Went and looked at houses today…Jim the Broker came and

picked us up and we looked at five, tho The Wife and I were more or
less convinced the last one, a cabin with about a fifth of an acre right
as you pull into town was what we would like.

156 The Diary of a Nobody

The first one was rather old, not in fabulous repair and looked like
everyone’s grandma’s house…Another looked really good from the
outside with a wood and stone exterior, but inside it was not very
functional…It said it had two bedrooms, but one was disguised a large
utility/laundry room and the other was long and narrow and more
resembled an old living room.

The blue house with the really nice yard was old and The Wife said
there was no way it would pass inspection…The largest and most ex-
pensive was affordable, but we’d be pushing it and we want to enjoy
our own home and not be flat broke, so we passed on that one as well.

The cabin, right across the street from the blue house, was it…We
both knew…Two bedrooms, a wood interior, newer than the others
and to The Wife’s practiced eye would have no trouble passing inspec-
tion…It also has a nice old shed, tho it does not have a fireplace or a
garage, tho it does have a carport…We both could see ourselves living
there in our 80’s, and we told Jim we liked it.

Later that night Jim emailed a contract over for our signa-
ture…The offer was for about $14,000 less than the asking price....The
Wife and I are both excited, but after our last two experiences trying
to buy a house we are not getting our hopes up…The Wife also won-
dered if we bid too low, but I told her Jim knows his stuff and that
there are a variety of factors that go into a bid, such as the last ap-
praisal value and the price other homes in the area sold for, and it
was probably best to trust Jim.

Jim also said the realtor for the other house, the one with 16 pages
of “Out of code” and “deferred maintenance” on it, asked if his client
could, you know, maybe take a peek at the report….I laughed and told
him sure, for the $325 we paid for the inspection….Jim said he would
advise his colleague of that.

Friday July 11
Broke dick!!!
This will surprise you, but the work truck went tits-up on us to-

day.

July 2014 157

We were a mile or two outside the town The Wife and I want to buy
a house in when Brian reported we’d lost power and pulled us
over…Brian has some mechanical skill but not enough to diagnose
the problem and, of course, I am some zero good for anything more
than replenishing washer fluid so we radioed the branch and they
dispatched a tow truck.

Since the truck wasn’t running neither was the air conditioner and
it was pretty hot in the truck…I was also obliged to steer the truck a
bit while it was pulled onto the tow truck…Since the truck wasn’t
running, I was obliged to do this without the benefit of power steering.

The truck weighs, and I am not making this up, 13 tons…Well
actually, it weighs 12.99999 tons because if it weighed 13 tons Brian
and I would need commercial driver licenses to operate it, but still,
steering the bugger up the ramp was not as easy as I hopefully made
it look.

Thankfully, our old friend Magic Martin was on duty…Regular
readers of this crap have met Martin before…Our relationship with
Magic Martin goes back to last spring and has only gotten
stronger….From on-the-spot field repairs to the occasional emergency
overnight fix Martin has saved the branch untold dollars in long-haul
towing fees and I am on record as stating if everyone were as good at
their job as Martin was at his this world would be a better place.

It took a couple-three hours for the tow truck to get to us, but once
we were in Martin’s presence he literally had the engine up and run-
ning in five (5) minutes…We opened the hood, Marin peeked in and
sprinkled his Magic Martin Fairy Dust and viola, we were back on the
road…Brian reported the official Magic Martin diagnosis was an elec-
trical problem due to a corroded battery.

We still had the route to finish, tho…That took a couple more
hours and Route 21 agreed to come up and meet us halfway rather
than make us drive all the way to Town A and all in all our little break-
down cost us three hours, which really annoyed Brian because he had
to drive back to the big city for his Air Force reserve time this weekend.

Freddie, who delivers for Route 21, was not pleased when told his
work schedule was going to be altered…It was kinda funny…Freddie

158 The Diary of a Nobody

is the fussy old man I am turning into, because I wanted to whine
about this, too.

Saturday July 12
So I check into the hotel before my talk tonight, get to my room

and discover I forgot toiletries…All of them, too…Not some…All of
them…Every single one…Toothpaste, deodorant, you name it, if it had
to do with personal hygiene, I forgot it.

Hit the road about 11am…I was only planning to drive three
hours, but while researching where the meeting was, which I proba-
bly should’ve done earlier this week, I discovered the meeting wasn’t
in the big city, but in a sorta big city an hour south…The Wife was off
helping a friend of ours prepare for her wedding, so I made the com-
mand decision to stay the night because I do not like driving at night
when I’m tired, so I booked a room.

I hit the road a bit late than I’d planned because two Jehovah’s
Witnesses corralled me as I was returning from walking the dog…They
had stopped by to chat with a neighbor, who wasn’t home, and I spent
about 20 minutes with them.

I’ve been talking to these good folks off and on since I was kid…I
am not on the same side of the religious fence as they are, but we do
agree it is tough to go thru life alone, and a good spiritual life is as
necessary as it is satisfying…I used an analogy of all spokes leading
to a hub, which the gentleman seemed to like.

The talk went well…I spoke for a few minutes, getting matters off
to a light start by asking how many people were seeing a Minor Party
candidate up close for the first time, with most of the room raising
their hands. I quoted Gerald Ford (“Government will continue to be
about as good as concerned and conscientious citizens make it”)
which they liked, and I got a few hoots when I said I favor a flat tax of
ten percent of individuals and businesses.

Talked to several individuals, too...Virtually every one said they
agreed with a lot of what the Party stands for, except for one or two
things.

July 2014 159

This always happens…Invariably they cite a religious belief as why
they oppose this or that…A good example of this is gay marriage, and
I will usually say something like “Well, I certainly respect that view,
but why are we deciding who gets which liberty and who doesn’t?”

This is problematic because not everyone wants look this truth in
the face, but I decided when I accepted the nomination I am not going
to sugar coat anything…I have enough hurdles to overcome without
being wishy-washy.

Another line I have, but seldom use because it really annoys peo-
ple, is just because something is legal does not make it mandatory…If
you do not want to smoke weed or gay marry, you don’t have to.

Sunday July 13
Checked out of the hotel really early today…Since I have to go to

the can every hour on the hour now, I was up before the alarm and
saw no reason not to leave and I was home before 9am.

Jim the Realtor called today with an update on our offer...The
deadline for acceptance had been yesterday, but he advised the con-
sortium that owns the house is having trouble mustering up all its
members to vote on approval and he took liberty of extending the
deadline on our behalf.

I did some research…The consortium owns several houses in
town, buying them as investments and if they accept our offer they
will be taking a bath, getting barely getting back fifty cents for every
dollar they invested.

Monday July 14
Under contract!!!
Jim the Realtor called today with the news…Actually, the consor-

tium that owns the house declined our offer, but countered with a
figure that was a few thousand more, but still a bit more than ten
percent below their original asking price…Jim recommended we ac-
cept it and, on behalf of The Wife, I did.

We’re not holding our breath…This is the third house we’ve been
under contract to buy in 18 months and we’re not under contract on
a third because the previous two went through…Last year we had an

160 The Diary of a Nobody

offer on a nice little cabin that was near a creek and the flood insur-
ance killed it…It was funny…We live in the mountains and the pre-
mium was exactly the same if we were purchasing a house on stilts in
the Fiji Islands…And of course, there was the recent fiasco where the
house we offered on turned out to be a goddamned pit, with an in-
spection report that consisted of more than 50 pages of deferred
maintenance and crap that was out of code and need replacing.

The Wife, who is pretty knowledgeable about stuff like this, gave
her approval to this house…I had had the inspection done on the pre-
vious house done before she had seen it for the first time, a colossal
mistake, tho we are still trying to sell that owner the 16-page report.

Tuesday July 15
Finally, a decently quick Tuesday…We’d been hoping for a sum-

mer of Tuesdays like today but there’s always been something…Other
routes we meet breaking down tops the list, of course, but sometimes
everyone’s been running slow or something else has popped up to pre-
vent us getting our route done quickly.

Not today…Route 24 was in Town B waiting for us, and we got
there early, too, so we were out of there nice and early and Brian was
running a really efficient route and I was flooring it and we were back
before 7pm, which is about an hour and a half earlier than normal.

Brian went to his Air Force reserve drill this past weekend and he
came back with his 1985 Jeep…I’m not really a Jeep guy, but Brian
says he can climb trees with it and he’s pretty excited about having it
the rest of the summer.

Wednesday July 16
I wrote both the state and national Minor Party an email today

requesting funds…This is not the first time I’ve done this and I have
a feeling I might have been better off placing it in a bottle and throwing
it in the river because none of my other emails or calls have been
returned.

Arranged for a home inspection today…Recall the last one resulted
in us withdrawing our offer on the home because of 50-plus pages of

July 2014 161

deferred maintenance and crap that was out of code…The Wife as-
sured me this one will pass muster, however.

Got homeowners and flood insurance quotes today, too…Both are
very reasonable, tho the lady did recommend flood insurance for while
our house in a moderate flood zone, we are only 400 feet or so away
from a higher flood zone.

The Wife and I have been talking about putting the dog down…She
is old, is getting testy with people and dogs she used to like and cannot
walk for more than a few minutes without limping…She does very lit-
tle now but sleep and isn’t an enthusiastic walker anymore...The Wife
even made an appointment for the end of the month to do it, but she
changed her mind today, and I hardly doubt this will be the last mind
change.

The cat, however, remains all in favor of it.
My fellow Minor Party candidates statewide – state legislative can-
didates, county board candidates and whatnot – email each other from
time to time and, probably because I’m their esteemed top of the ticket
candidate, they include me…Their latest communications concerned
bus stop signs.
This immediately intrigued me and when I told Bonser about it
intrigued him, too…So we did some research…$400 for a month and
$100 to set the artwork up, which is a lot less than they were specu-
lating…Someone, who obviously had done some zero research in the
matter, thought the artwork probably cost a thousand dollars or so.
Bonser came up with the brilliant idea of tailoring the ad to
gays…Gay marriage is a pretty big issue here and its legality seems to
change every hour on the hour…Currently, civil unions are legal, how-
ever a 2006 constitutional amendment made out right gay marriage
illegal…That law was recently overturned by a federal appeals court,
tho the ruling has stayed pending appeal to the United States Su-
preme Court.
I have an artistic bent and I came up with a design…It has the
same pic of me that is on my campaign website and the message “Lib-
erty and Marriage For All” which I came up with and I am pretty
pleased with…Included is a quote from Candidate Sparrow stating a

162 The Diary of a Nobody

nation conceived in liberty cannot pick and choose who gets which
liberty.

I fully support the right of gays to marry without qualification or
restriction…If you are a dude and you don’t want to marry another
dude, don’t worry about it, you don’t have to…As I like to say, just
because something is legal does not make it mandatory.

The Wife and I were talking about this recently…We both think in
a hundred years, after gays have been marrying for decades, folks will
look back and wonder what the hell all the fuss was about.

This is a good idea because average white guys like me are not
going to get me elected…Plus, I only need 34 percent of the vote to win
because if I’m a contender it’s a three-person race…Gays are, more or
less, 15 percent of the population, tho it should be noted I haven’t
done the seminal research on the matter…So if they like me and vote
for me, and I can mobilize the college students, I could make a differ-
ence November.

Thursday July 17
Greg, who is now our staff home inspector, said the inspection of

our new cabin is schedule for Tuesday morning…I won’t be able to go
and The Wife says she probably won’t since she’s already been in it
and it has already passed her inspection.

Spent over two house on the phone with the bank…The point of
contention were the closing costs…They were about $375 higher than
the previous loan. And they never were able to find out why.

Friday July 18
Still no word from either the state or national Minor Party offices

to my emails demanding money and organizational support…Bonser
followed up with some phone calls that have had some zero effect and
he commented this was good, actually, because it means they are
butting out and allowing us to construct our campaign as we see fit…

I added their commitment to our autonomy appears to be total if
they aren’t even acknowledging us.

July 2014 163

The latest from The Wife is we are not going to put the dog down
at the end of the month…She said she still has the appointment, tho,
so the dog is not out of the woods yet.

Saturday July 19
Back at the gym…I’d been an enthusiastic weight lifter for years

up until last October when I started doing some writing and lost in-
terest and we let our membership lapse.

The Wife, tho, has been working at the local hot springs/gym,
which is a first class facility, and her 88 hours of labor the past couple
of months has earned us a year-long membership.

I got to the gym a couple of hours later than planned because the
car wouldn’t start…It was funny, sort of…The battery had drained it-
self, we are still not entirely sure how, so the auto club came out and
jumped us…They had the usual recommendation of driving it around
for 45 minutes so we drove out to the house we’re buying, which is
about 20 minutes down the road…It’s vacant and while we couldn’t
get in, we did wander around the yard and planned fencing for the
dog, who evidently has been reprieved for good…It was actually time
well spent…Later in the day the battery was still not starting the car
properly, so we got a new battery.

Still knocked out a great workout, tho…My workout supplement,
Crack 2K, was still coursing through my veins and while I couldn’t lift
the weight I used to be able to move, I did get my standard workout of
three sets of ten reps each in. I will be back to the old weight soon
enough.

The first set is at a very light weight, something you can do 15-18
times…The second set is at a weight you can do 12-15 times and the
third set is also ten reps, with number ten being the last one you can
do with good form, known as failure in the gym…My final set was
about the weight my second sets used to be, but anytime you’re doing
the third set of ten reps and number ten is failure you are building
muscle.

164 The Diary of a Nobody

There are a variety of ways to lift weights and don’t do this workout
if you are looking to tone up…This method works if you want to build
some mass.

Sunday July 20
Passed what I always thought would be a milestone in the cam-

paign today when I received an email from a gentleman imploring me
to withdraw from the campaign!!!...I am not making that up…Spar-
row, polling at all of six (6) percent was asked to drop out of the race
because I appear to be stealing votes from the GOP candidate.

My own opinion is they are stealing votes from me…Besides, look,
if the third party candidate is costing you votes, you need to take at
your base and ask them what the deal is because I am not your biggest
problem, just a manifestation of your problem.

Some research/stalking shows the gentleman does not have a very
big internet presence, but based on what I did find I suspect he might
well have seen me speak a couple of weeks ago.

Bonser was typically elated…He says they are running scared now
and our election is all but certain…My own opinion is the waypoint
is when one of the major candidates starts throwing mud at me.

Wrote some stuff for the campaign site today about the Apollo pro-
gram…Today was the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing…It is
one of my earliest memories and the landmark even in human history,
if you ask me, I wrote about how I thought it was a shame we haven’t
been to Mars yet.

Monday July 21
Back in the gym for an early morning weight session, my first in

ages…Working first thing in the morning is my favorite time to lift.

Tuesday July 22
Mid-90’s or so today in town, which is about as hot as it gets

here…You can always tell when it hits the mid-90’s because the a/c
in the truck throws in the towel and starts losing the battle with the
steel plated armored truck…It never gets too hot, but it’s not all that
cool, either.

July 2014 165

Got to blow the siren today for a group of kids again!!!…We were
pulling into our last stop – a sporting goods store – and there was a
group of kids, plainly from a baseball team, milling about outside and,
inevitably when a group of kids is gathered and I drive up they started
pumping arms up down so I obliged them with the siren…It’s pretty
loud and never fails to impress the kiddies.

Wednesday July 23
Had to take a drug test today…The Doily Delivery Company makes

its employees take them from time to time and my name came up.
I was in the gym early this morning again and The Wife was kinda

worried about me taking a test with the Crack 2K workout supple-
ment, fearing high levels of Humanafort might get me fired, but I as-
sured her they were just testing for weed and other assorted goodies.

This led to a pretty good line, with me saying we’ll probably get a
note from Chas, the branch manager, saying I’ve been ruled ineligible
for the Olympics, but am still OK to deliver doilies.

What was really funny was a Breathalyzer test was included…Who
the hell fails a Breathalyzer test at nine in the morning???

The lady there said I’d be surprised, it actually happens…Not too
often, but from time to time.

I was all smiles as The Wife and I entered the office…The lady
asked me my birthdate and I told her and immediately held up both
hands saying, “I know, I know, I don’t look it…You wanna see my ID,
don’t you???”…

Turns out she did…I had gone ready to go wee-wee and I was done
in about 15 minutes.

I gave the truck some Sparrow Premium Care today, too…I refilled
the washer fluid dispenser and topped off the coolant and while we
were fueling up I measured the tire tread depth (17/32 front, 13/32,
back) and both are within federal specs, tho the rear tires are wearing
unevenly…I emailed my findings to the branch…I also washed the
windows, an effort in futility generally because of the thousands of
bugs we hit daily, but I got the worst of it off…More or less.

166 The Diary of a Nobody

Thursday July 24
Boy, the dog may have sealed her fate today…She would not let us

sleep…Like most houses up here we do not have a/c because it’s re-
ally only necessary three days out of the year and we keep the win-
dows open at night…This means the dog can hear and smell more
stuff, like cats and bears, than in the winter when the windows are
closed, and she was barking whining off and on all night.

The Wife is wondering if she still has the appointment with the vet
to put her down…Me, too, actually…I was beat and trying to get to
sleep early last night while The Wife was at work, but she was whining
then, too.

Spent some quality time on the phone with the bank today…The
concept of me working away from the main branch has them befud-
dled for some reason, and I had to assure them I don’t pay for the
storage unit we keep the truck in and provide its address.

After an hour or so Chester told me the underwriters approved our
application and it has been sent to processor, whom we should hear
from early next week.

In work news, we were on the route today when Chas, the branch
manager, radios us…We do our job well, so we’re never too worried
when the Big Guy calls, and he has been known just to call and say
howdy and see how we’re doing.

It was better than that today…Turns out times are getting a little
better financially for the branch and us employees are getting profit
sharing checks…I’m getting a few hundred bucks and Brian is getting
a bit less, because he’s worked fewer hours due to his Air Force re-
serve commitments, but he’s getting a nice amount, too.

Chas said a big key was safety…We are neither getting injured or
banging up trucks at the rate we used to, but there were other factors
to, like more new and retained business, and he thanked us for our
efforts.

What was funny was Brian was in the passenger seat sleeping,
and I couldn’t very well say hold on while I wake Brian up to tell him
the news, so if Chas got the impression Brian was deeply thrilled by
this news, too, well, I have no control over that, and I thanked him for
giving us a nice place to work.

July 2014 167

Friday July 25
Brian showed his gratitude for the profit sharing check by taking

the day off so he could go test for a police department on the Front
Range…He actually took the written test last month and this weekend
he has his PT test and if he passes that his oral board.

A long time ago I sat before a law enforcement oral board and I
told Brian to remember they need officers, and as long as he doesn't
waltz in smoking weed, exudes some confidence without being cocky
and answer the questions honestly, he will do well.

Oh, and be honest when they ask for a weakness…When I hired
people it always – and always means every single time – peeved me
when someone said they do not have a weakness.

Our old friend Melis, who The Wife has a HUGE crush on, was my
partner today…I usually see him for a minute or two on Tuesdays
when we meet with Route 25 and it was nice spending the day with
him.

He was helpful, too…The delivery guy, known as a messenger in
the trade, carried some keys with him, so he can get in the truck and
open the back door…The branch only provides a ring for carrying the
keys, and a lot of messengers fork over for one of those thingies that
clips on to a pocket or belt and has a chain that extends out to reach
the lock.

(On our route I provide this; Brian provides magnetic clips to hold
paperwork inside the truck. Now you know.)

Anyway, our current key back broke this week…It was round and
I clipped it on my shirt pocket…I really wanted one of those that fit
nicely on a duty belt, but the hardware store here doesn’t carry those.

So we’re in a small town a couple of hours out of town at the start
of the route and I tell Melis this and he suggests we try the hardware
store here, which I dismiss because, frankly, I didn’t think of it...That’s
a silly reason, of course, so I said sure, let’s try it and BOOM, there it
was, right at the goddamned entrance, the key back I’d always
wanted, the kind that fits perfectly on my duty belt.

168 The Diary of a Nobody

Saturday July 26
Made some campaign videos today…Bonser and I had been mean-

ing to do this for a while, actually.
Neither one of us were particularly expert at this, so thank good-

ness for Bonser’s rug rat Matt, who saved the day because like most
nine-year-olds he knows more about this stuff than most adults…He
showed us how to use the camera on the campaign tablet and how
not to erase the good takes we wanted to keep and when we were done
he uploaded them to youtube for us while we stood around and
scratched our asses.

We did them at the Commander’s Office at the Post, which I have
access to now because, of course, I am the Commander. We brought
a stool for me to sit on, which made me feel very official, and we made
sure I had both the national colors and the state flag discreetly visible
behind me.

They weren’t very long…I decided to stop trying to be Daniel Day-
Lewis and just be myself and they came out pretty good…I wore a light
blue dress shirt and my fave green tie with tasteful blue paisley deals
on it…We decided not to go with the suit coat…Or rather I decided…I
felt comfy in the shirt.

The first one was on gay marriage…I said I favor it, that there is
no reason to keep gays from marrying simply because they are differ-
ent from us…Either all of us are free, or none of us are free, I said, a
line I came up with pretty much on the spur of the moment and which
caused Bonser to achieve and maintain a state of arousal normally
associated with porn stars.

The second one was on sending incumbents back to Washing-
ton…Both my major party opponents currently serve in Con-
gress…The Democrat is the senator whose seat we are all chasing,
and the Republican is in the House, from a district in the eastern part
of the state…I said if either one of them were hell bent on changing
our country, they would’ve done it already, and that sending either
one of them back to Washington – and it really doesn’t matter which
one – is going to result in zero change….I added the status quo might
OK with them, but it is not OK with me, and I need everyone’s help to

July 2014 169

make a difference on November 4…Bonser said this one turned out
really good.

Got the day started with another good weight lifting session…In a
week I am already getting stronger, tho I am not as strong as I was
before the layoff…But I am getting there.

Monday July 28
The Wife and I spent some time on the phone with the realtor today

going over the inspection report…The cabin is in pretty good shape,
but there were about eight (8) things on our list, from a plumbing
repair that had been done, pretty good actually, with duct tape, to an
electrical issue and a railing on the porch and a few other things.

Oh, and a small water leak…There is a satellite dish attached to
the south side of the house I want removed, too, because we do not
own a tee vee, but Jim the Realtor said we’ll take care of that sepa-
rately because the list is getting kinda long.

Tuesday July 29
I hopped today, delivering doilies on our busiest day instead of

driving because Brian asked me to yesterday…He has reserve drill this
weekend and he leaves Friday after the route and he’d rather not drive
500 miles on the route then another 150 to the big city for drill.

Josh was working Route 24 when we arrived in Town A…We don’t
have a whole lot of Josh contact anymore…We used to…Josh used to
be the Doily Dispensing Machine (DDM) tech at the branch before he
got tired of it and reverted back to messenger/driver…Josh is a good
guy and it was good seeing him again…We talked about the profit
sharing checks we got and I added it was really good for morale here
at the satellite branch, with Josh adding morale up here always
seemed to be pretty good, tho he acknowledged it could very well spike
with a profit sharing check.

Got a good laugh, too, when Josh handed us our paper-
work…There is a lot of paperwork attendant with Tuesdays…Lists de-
tailing the stuff we are being given, paperwork for stuff being delivered
from the branch to a client, and paperwork for deposits being taken
from a client to their bank…Among other paperwork…Included is the

170 The Diary of a Nobody

weekly Route Standards Report (RSR)…I’m pretty smart, but even I
have a hard time deciphering the RSR – which details how efficient
each route is - so, between you and me, we don’t always pay a whole
lot of attention it.

So when I was sorting thru the day’s paperwork and came across
the RSR, I made a big deal about it and said in a pretty funny exag-
gerated voice “Well, we can throw THAT away…” which got a pretty
good laugh from Josh.

I could get snitty, I suppose, and whine about not getting an even
bigger laugh out of Josh, but I’m content with my line…I don’t know
if it will be Line of the Year, but it was a reasonably good line that got
a reasonably good laugh.

Me delivering adds an hour to the route…We’ve discussed this be-
fore…I’m simply not as fast as Brian…And we only had three DDM’s
to service today, too…We have nine on the route, and three get ser-
viced every Tuesday and the others get serviced on Tuesday as
needed…On average, there are about five DDM’s we service every
Tuesday and I think our record is seven.

Meeting Route 22 at the end of the day, Aaron was smoking what
appeared to be some piping from a hydraulic pump but was actually
an e-cigarette…I asked him what flavor he was rolling with and he
said pina colada…I laughed, called him a pussy, and wondered aloud
if tutti-frutti had been taken.

Melis was driving Route 22, too…Said hi, and told him The Wife
wondered if he sleeps in his armored vest…He said of course, tho he
does take most of the six (6) knives he carries out.

Wednesday July 30
Was back at the gym early this morning…One of the advantages

to getting older is you don’t have to worry about setting the alarm
when you want to be out the door for a zero five thirty workout, you
just make sure to drink some water before going to bed and you’ll be
up to use the can before 5am…This is useful so you don’t have to
worry about waking The Wife up.

July 2014 171

Thursday July 31
Another early morning workout…I’ve always enjoyed lifting imme-

diately upon getting up and I usually go to bed early enough so I’m
usually well rested.

I’m getting stronger, too…I’m not as strong as I used to be, but I’m
getting there.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is I can do the same workout
on consecutive days and be as strong on Day 2 as I was on Day
1…Some further research showed that Day 3 showed a significant
drop off, so I don’t lift three straight days, but two straight days is
really good.

Nothing new on the house front…Jim the Realtor told us the dead-
line for the sellers to respond to our inspection objection list, but I
forget when it was...The official loan application should be here to-
morrow.

Well, the dog got a reprieve…It’s official…We were at the vet for
what ended up being a counseling session for The Wife because the
dog’s shots and everything are all up to date…The vet did so little,
except listen to The Wife, he didn’t charge us for the visit…We took
the money we would’ve spent at the vet and went and bought a new
harness for the dog.

We also found out The Wife’s daughter, Her Majesty, who visited
over New Year’s with her then boyfriend, is attached again…They were
chatting on the phone when Her Majesty broke the news, saying she
had to end the call because it was time to see her new boyfriend…This,
of course, extended the conversation a good while, with The Wife ac-
tually talked briefly with the hapless kid, ordering him not to get her
pregnant.

The kid seems to have a sense of humor, telling The Wife “She
hasn’t told you?” which The Wife didn’t find funny at all.

A neighbor a couple of cabins down has a nice pot garden go-
ing…Weed is legal in this state and it was kinda funny watching an-
other neighbor – plainly a customer – inspecting the crop and equally
plainly fretting over it…The Wife, more to give him something to do
than anything else, told him they needed water, so the young man
rather enthusiastically, went and watered all four of plants.



August 2014

Friday August 1
Drove the route today…Usually I deliver on Fridays, but as noted

earlier this week Brian had to scram to the big city for his Air Force
reserve duty and he didn’t want to drive 500 miles (actually 511) and
then drive three more hours…I hadn’t driven on Friday in a while and
it was a nice leisurely day…We only have a couple-dozen stops or so,
and only one DDM, and the deliverer spends a lot of time being a pas-
senger.

I haven’t had an apple fritter on Friday for a while…Apple Fritter
Friday used to be a tradition for a couple of months, but while I like
apple fritters – who doesn’t? – I’ll be honest, I was kinda getting sick
of having one every goddamned week.

Jim the Realtor said the owners of the cabin had the heater in-
spected and it needs to be replaced…They are debating whether to
replace it or install floor heaters in each room…The Wife said we’d
prefer the gas heater be replaced, but it really isn’t our call.

Saturday August 2
Saw Ray in gym today…I met Ray last week at the gym at the leg

machines and we talked extensively about politics…Ray is 78, his
mind still sharp and he is in good shape…He said he had some knee
surgery recently and was working his way back to full strength.

Anyway, he wondered why I wasn’t out campaigning…I’m wonder-
ing that, too, actually…I do have a debate with the big boys on August
24 but other than that the ol’ campaign calendar is more or less wide
open.

I told Ray it is rather tough drumming up appearances…This is
partly due to the election still being a ways off and the fact I have little
money and even less name recognition, but is also a testament to the
fact I am getting very little support from the state party…It also doesn’t
help I live in a remote part of the state.

174 The Diary of a Nobody

Ray said it must be like pissing up a tree and I said he wasn’t too
far off the mark, but I am going to keep pissing and see what happens.

Later, I talked to Bonser about the dearth of appearances and he
blamed the usual problems third party candidates have getting taken
seriously…This is true, too…I

Bonser says we are conserving our resources until college starts
at the end of the month…He said kids are going to get us elected an-
yway, so this makes sense…He added school starts at the state uni-
versities the day after our candidate’s forum, and he is trying to drum
up appearances that weekend, because students will be on campus.

Also today I filled out a questionnaire for an endorsement…One of
the questions asked if there were any liberty issues I felt needed to be
deemphasized in the campaign.

Well, yes there are. Two came to mind: ending the federal reserve
and abolishing the IRS…Both are fundamental tenets of the party I
belong to.

I’ve found that the average voter doesn’t really know what the fed-
eral reserve does, much less what will happen if it is abolished…So I
don’t talk about it…I am a third party candidate and if I go around
confusing or boring someone I am probably not going to get their vote,
which I am going to have a hard enough time getting on my own.

People really like the concept of abolishing the IRS at first, but us
humans are resistant to change and my feeling is if I go around railing
about abolishing the IRS no one will vote for me, either.

Sunday August 3
Spent a couple hours filling out (another) home loan application

today…Recall this is our second in a month…Since it was old hat I
breezed right through it and put those little colored tabs on the pages
requiring The Wife’s signature…Anyone who has applied for a home
loan can relate, and if you haven’t, but have joined the service, you
have an idea of the number of times you are obliged to sign your name.

As noted, the consortium we are buying the cabin from are losing
their shirts on this deal, so much so our mortgage is well less than
$500 a month…I am not making that up…I told Bonser this and he is

August 2014 175

insanely jealous, as he should be, because he forked over for a large,
really nice home near the mountain and his mortgage currently give
it to him in the shorts…A mortgage in the second decade of the 21st
century for less than $500 a month for a cabin that is in a quiet, nice
small town and is in rather good condition and that has a large yard
is almost unheard of.

Made hotcakes this morning, too… Some might recall my last offer
to make Sunday breakfast was taken as a threat and immediately mo-
bilized The Wife to make breakfast herself.

Today tho, my offer was gratefully accepted…I made hotcakes,
too… Following the directions resulted in a really thick batter…So I
added some more water, which made it great if you wanted to drink
your hotcakes, so I continued adding mix and water until I had
enough batter to make hotcakes for a small frigate….The actual cook-
ing of the pancakes went well, tho…I used a lot of oil, which resulted
in crispy edges, just like Grandpa Sparrow used to make…I even made
several small hotcakes for The Wife, and two large ones for me.

Key, tho, were my two sunny side-up eggs…When they were ready,
about five seconds after hitting the pan, I buttered the bottom hotcake
then put the eggs on top and then put the second hotcake on top of
the eggs!...Really, this is what makes me a complete maniac…Don’t
try this at home, I am a trained professional.

Monday August 4
My first meeting as Commander of the Legion post is on the

14th…Stanko the Adjutant called this weekend to let me know…Ac-
tually, one of my jobs as Commander is to decide when we meet and
I should’ve been the one calling him, but Stanko is responsible for
day-to-day post operations and I was happy to delegate this responsi-
bility to him.

In theory we meet once every three months up here, the minimum
required by the Legion…We are not the busiest Post in history and we
usually when we do meet it is often to plan for something coming up.

The agenda looks real exciting, too…I will talk about our trip to
the state convention in June and Coach Dave, also a Post member,
will have talk about our baseball team’s season, Stanko will yap about

176 The Diary of a Nobody

the money we’ve taken in from bingo and the pull tabs at the bar and
we will plan for some upcoming events.

One is at the end of this month, providing a color guard for a local
think tank…I went last year and whoa Nelly, we were invited to the
VIP reception which included an open bar.

I am not much of a drinker, but even I appreciate an open bar,
and I had my share of champagne…I didn’t have too much – I was still
able to present the colors with the dignity you would expect and I
demand – but I did, officially, have an “enjoyable” time at the open
bar.

The route today was pretty routine today…We did pull up to a stop
that saw several teenagers loitering near where we usually park at the
entrance…They didn’t look like the last word in evil, but you learn in
work like this you can go from zero to sixty in the snap of your fingers
so I told Brian as he headed out to make sure the kiddies didn’t take
his gun away…As it was, they had more or less fled by the time Brian
exited, so it was academic anyway.

Actually, there is a lot of road construction and utility work going
on in town and it is to the point where it is costing us about 20
minutes every day now.

Tuesday August 5
I made my own lunch today…Usually The Wife is up early and

makes it for me but today she slept in and I certainly wasn’t about to
wake Her up simply so she could make me a to-go meal…I do not take
my lunch too seriously, rolling with a couple of peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches and the remainder of a bag of gluten free blue corn chips
even tho I still do not completely understand where blue corn comes
from.

Got to blow the truck’s siren again today!!!...I am not making that
up!!!...What used to never happens is now a fortnightly occur-
rence…We were at our last stop today, up on the mountain where
Brian was servicing a Doily Dispensing Machine (DDM) and there was
a group of kids in bright green shirts walking right in front of the
truck, dangerously without apparent adult supervision.

August 2014 177

Well, they didn’t need to twist my arm…A few of them, most of
them actually, were looking in my direction and smiling and waving
so I blew the siren for a couple of seconds…Not too long…The siren is
really loud and even tho it isn’t ski season there are still a few people
milling about the mountain…As always, the kids enjoyed it…Shortly
after I shut the siren off the adult in charge walked past looking at me
suspiciously.

We had a spot of truck trouble, too, and ended up swapping trucks
with Aaron and Route 22 today…(Melis is on vacation and Chuck the
New Guy was driving)…We were moseying through a parking lot when
the engine decided to stop…So we stopped, too, since the engine
wasn’t running…This has actually happened before in this very same
parking lot and like last time the truck started right up again…The
engine light had been toying with us all day, too, so we radioed Dave,
the mechanic at the branch and he said it was probably the same
electrical crap we went through last month and to send it back with
Route 22.

Our new truck is few years older and has about a hundred thou-
sand more miles on it, but it was is fine shape, plainly the recipient of
some recent maintenance…As usual, we’re hopeful to have it back
Friday, but, also as usual, the branch will probably have it for a couple
of weeks…

The new truck is one of those with separate compartments for the
driver and deliverer…I don’t really mind this except for the fact the
delivery guy’s compartment is kinda hard to work in and impossible
to stand straight up in…Also, I don’t like the steering wheel…It doesn’t
adjust, just stays in an annoyingly low position, and I can’t tilt it up
and steer from the bottom and like a bus driver I remember from when
I was a kid taking the bus to college.

Wednesday August 6
Things are moving on the house.
The sellers came back with a counteroffer on our inspection ob-

jections…They included something we didn’t put in, some caulking
and painting that was a concern to the VA appraiser, but they also left
out some things, including a hose bib leak and the proper repair of a

178 The Diary of a Nobody

pipe under the sink that was, rather adequately it seems, originally
repaired with duct tape.

I wrote Jim the Realtor and said I didn’t think it was unreasonable
for the plumbing to be squared away when we take possession…We’ll
see what he says.

The Wife and I are debating when to give notice to our landlord…In
the back of both of our minds is the fact this is the third time we’ve
been under contract for a house and we still haven’t bought one…In
my role as Husband it is my duty to provide, among other things,
shelter and if I give notice, our place is rented and our deal falls
through we are homeless.

This would be, officially, “bad” and it is my duty to do what is
required to ensure this doesn’t happen, so I am not going to give notice
until our deal is set in stone…If this means waiting until we have the
keys in our hand and we are paying for a vacant cabin for a period of
time, we’ll do that…That would be less than ideal because our first
mortgage payment isn’t for two months and we would lose some sav-
ings, but I’m not giving notice until I am sure…I know you appreciate
that as much as I do.

Thursday August 7
Lifted weights with the Sheriff this morning…Well, not the whole

workout, but part of it…We are sometimes there at the same time early
in the morning and we found ourselves in the same part of the gym
for a while…We’ve met on occasion before at a couple of events and as
Commander of the local Legion Post and a United States Senate can-
didate I am of minor importance around town so he favored me with
some of his time.

We talked about campaigning for a bit…He asked if I felt comfort-
able speaking in front of a crowd and I said sure, I feel right at home…I
added a very long time ago, another life, really, I had been a radio
announcer.

He said he started campaigning with zero such experience, and
his first time ever public speaking was his first campaign speech a few
years ago and he was scared shitless…I told him I’ve always enjoyed
and I was more or less blessed with a knack for it.

August 2014 179

The dog is not taking to her new harness too well…Her red one
broke and we had her trained perfectly for putting it on…We’d put it
over her head and then she was required to lift her left leg through
and she caught on pretty quickly.

The new one, though, requires both legs to go through and the dog
does not like this at all…We tried putting it on the floor and lifting
each leg into the opening but she loses interest after the first one…I
tried to putting one through, holding it up and then maneuvering my-
self to put the second leg through, but I don’t have three hands so this
is difficult.

Talked with Jim the Realtor today…I told him The Wife and I do
not feel it is unreasonable for the sellers to ensure all the plumbing is
squared away and there are no leaks or electrical tape repairs…He
agreed and said he’d talk it over with his counterpart and this after-
noon he texted and said they agreed.

We didn’t get everything we asked for, but we’ll take it.
In other news, The Wife said her son will be coming up, too, just
to make himself useful.

Thursday August 7
Lifted weights with the Sheriff this morning…Well, not the whole

workout, but part of it…We are sometimes there at the same time early
in the morning and we found ourselves in the same part of the gym
for a while…We’ve met on occasion before at a couple of events and as
Commander of the local Legion Post and a United States Senate can-
didate I am of minor importance around town so he favored me with
some of his time.

We talked about campaigning for a bit…He asked if I felt comfort-
able speaking in front of a crowd and I said sure, I feel right at home…I
added a very long time ago, another life, really, I had been a radio
announcer.

He said he started campaigning with zero such experience, and
his first time ever public speaking was his first campaign speech a few
years ago and he was scared shitless…I told him I’ve always enjoyed
and I was more or less blessed with a knack for it.

180 The Diary of a Nobody

The dog is not taking to her new harness too well…Her red one
broke and we had her trained perfectly for putting it on…We’d put it
over her head and then she was required to lift her left leg through
and she caught on pretty quickly.

The new one, though, requires both legs to go through and the dog
does not like this at all…We tried putting it on the floor and lifting
each leg into the opening but she loses interest after the first one…I
tried to putting one through, holding it up and then maneuvering my-
self to put the second leg through, but I don’t have three hands so this
is difficult.

Talked with Jim the Realtor today…I told him The Wife and I do
not feel it is unreasonable for the sellers to ensure all the plumbing is
squared away and there are no leaks or electrical tape repairs…He
agreed and said he’d talk it over with his counterpart and this after-
noon he texted and said they agreed.

We didn’t get everything we asked for, but we’ll take it.
In other news, The Wife said her son will be coming up, too, just
to make himself useful.

Friday, August 8
I HATE BRIAN!
He’s in his mid-20’s trim and athletic and can eat whatever the

hell he wants with impunity.
Recall we have a loaner truck, the one with separate compart-

ments for the driver and deliverer…When the driver needs to use the
can the deliverer is obliged to go up and sit in the driver’s compart-
ment…This is because the driver’s compartment cannot be accessed
from the outside without the key…So I did that this afternoon and the
driver’s cab looks like a confectionary convention!!!/

I am not making that up…A box of those mini-donuts, a fruit pie,
some candy plus some energy drinks and Cheeze-Its, too!!!...He does
this crap all the time, too and doesn’t gain an ounce while I gained
three pounds merely being in their vicinity.

Meanwhile, The Wife packed some sandwiches for me, plus an ap-
ple and some celery sticks and – get this – an Ensure, and I’m still

August 2014 181

only treading water today because I am spending most of the day rid-
ing in an armored truck…Brian meanwhile, eats sweets all day - plus
Cheeze-Its for thru the day snacking – topping it all off with some
gluten free- convenience store pizza and low-cal corn dogs and weighs
a buck-ten.

Brian’s birthday was this week, too, and the branch sent up its
usual coffee mug as a present…Last year’s mug, which I received, too,
was a white ceramic deal with the company logo on it…This one was
blue and of a slightly different shape, also with the company logo on
it…It’s all academic because Brian doesn’t drink coffee, saying he uses
last year’s mug to hold pens…Plans for the new mug were not dis-
closed.

We got our usual truck back, too, swapping it out with Route 1 at
the end of the day…I asked Freddie how he liked our truck and he
shook his head and said he didn’t, noting it was pretty dirty inside.

“Have you been inside there???” he asked, raising a hand for em-
phasis.

Well, you know, we have…We spend upwards of 40 hours a week
in there, more in the winter, so we have a pretty good handle on con-
ditions inside…We do not sweep it out all that often, nor do we pick
up the stuff that accumulates on the floor as often as we should.

But, as Brian said, it’s home…It was good to have it back…We
presume whatever engine work was required was done, and we cer-
tainly noticed the new tires on the back.

Saturday August 9
I am almost back to full strength in the gym…I am not making

that up…The only exercises that are still getting up to speed are the
ones involving the biggest muscles: the bench press and squats…Eve-
rything else is back: biceps, triceps, shoulders and leg curls and ex-
tensions.

In house news, I made some phone calls for movers…The Wife has
some zero interest in renting a truck and doing it ourselves, and I
don’t either, really, tho I would if it was our only option, so I worked
the phone today.

182 The Diary of a Nobody

There are three moving companies in town…Two charge $130 and
hour and the other charges $95 an hour for two people, so as soon as
they return The Wife’s phone call and pass her initial interrogation,
we will probably go with them.

The dog could be on thin ice again…She ralphed and pooped in
the house recently, which I had to clean up, but it was The Wife who
suggested we put the dog down.

We’re not really selfish enough to put the dog down because she
ralphs in the house, but she is old, limping badly and doesn’t really
want to go for walks anymore.

Sunday August 10
The Wife made Sunday hotcakes today…Recall I made them last

week…I think I did a solid job and I was willing to make them today,
but The Wife graciously said she would make them today…Our battle
over which is better, several dozen penny-sized pancakes or two large
ones will never be settled.

We got rid of the egg pan, too…This I had gotten at a thrift store
in Las Vegas way back in the bachelor days…I was always making
noises about how great an egg pan it was, forbidding The Wife to throw
it out despite many attempts over the years…

We threw it out today, tho…New house, new egg pan The Wife
said…I agreed, too…It really wasn’t a great egg pan…Sure, it felt good
in the hand and was the perfect size for cooking eggs a variety of ways,
but the eggs were always sticking…I could never understand that…No
matter what you put in – oil, butter, what have you – the eggs always
stuck…I could see The Wife’s point about not wanting sticking eggs in
our new house.

We’ve been packing for more than a week, too…Mostly books so
far…We have over two dozen boxes of books, tho it should be noted
these boxes are of varying sizes and some aren’t all that big, ei-
ther…The Wife refuses to pay for boxes, a position I support, so we’ve
been raiding a local sandwich shop, which is always throwing boxes
away, and The Wife has been taking some, with permission, from her
job at a major retailer.

August 2014 183

Monday August 11
My tour as Commander – joked by some to be no less than forty

years – starts in earnest this week.
Then joke is because everyone at the Post who wants to be Com-

mander has already been Commander and I am the only option for
the foreseeable future.

Wednesday is our pizza party for the Post baseball team…I will
present the inaugural Commander’s Award…Stanko and I actually
discussed this at the state convention in June…Coach Dave presents
the usual awards coaches present, like best hitter, best pitcher, most
valuable and stuff like that, and I thought it would be nice to present
an award to a player who has good skills, but also is a leader and a
good kid off the field…I also told Stanko I felt Commander’s Award
was a good name for it.

Stanko liked the idea and said sure, and then completely lost his
mind and proclaimed it a great idea, my first as Commander…He gave
me the name of an awards shop in town and I stopped by there today
and talked to Deb…I had actually called Deb last week and she
emailed me some ideas today and I went to formalize them…In addi-
tion to the individual award we also tossed around some ideas for the
perpetual award to be hung in the Post meeting room.

Thursday is my first meeting as Commander…It should be low key
enough…Stanko sent over the order of ceremonies and whatnot, and
I will have a gavel to maintain order, so everything should go OK.

I ran into immediate Past Commander Buck over the weekend and
said I will be counting on his guidance and he said “fuck that noise”
he wasn’t even going to be there, adding with a smile I was on my own.

Buck joked he had been Commander since Reconstruction and
he’d enough of meetings for a while.

Here’s the latest on the house: we have decided to move ourselves,
and The Wife made reservations for a U-Haul today…What’s moder-
ately interesting is the we are closing on the 2nd, which is the day
after Labor Day…Our reservation was for a Labor Day pickup and the
people called today, advised they did weren’t particularly thrilled with
the idea of coming in for an hour on Labor Day and why didn’t we
come by and pick it up Saturday with their compliments???....The

184 The Diary of a Nobody

Wife could see no reason why not, so she made the command decision
to accept their offer.

It’s fun buying a home in the second decade of the 21st century...I
drive on Mondays and we were at a stop early in the route when I get
an email from Jim saying the final contract for the resolution of our
inspection objections was ready…I can do that from my phone, and
did so, taking the liberty of signing for The Wife as well…Later I signed
another contract from the driver’s seat of the doily truck, an amend-
ment formally adjusting our closing date to September 2.

I’ve arranged for that day off…With our decision to move ourselves,
plus a possible candidates forum on the 4th, I have also asked for the
rest of the week off…We’ll see…It’s fairly short notice.

More packing today, too…The bookcases, knick-knacks and stuff,
plus a lot of the kitchen are ready to move.

More early morning weightlifting today, too…I am eating well and
feeling good and even think I am looking pretty good, too.

Tuesday August 12
The latest on the house: the appraisal was approved…This took a

bit longer than anticipated by my secret worry about the home being
appraised for less than we offered – which would kill the deal, of
course – didn’t come to pass…It came in just a bit above what we are
paying and this is a small town and it wouldn’t surprise me if the
appraiser called Jim the Realtor, found out how much we offered, de-
cided that seemed reasonable, and appraised it accordingly.

I ate like a pig today, too…Lots of tasty convenience store food, the
kind that goes straight to my hips…I was nice an active, tho, sitting
and driving the doily delivery truck for 14 hours, so I probably worked
none of it off.

Wednesday August 13
The pizza party for the Post baseball team was tonight…We had a

fine season, too, 17-2, which I am not making up…Our team, my team
now, won 17 of 19 games which even I know is really good.

The down side is baseball is not a popular sport in this part of the
state, and there were not enough teams for the league we usually play

August 2014 185

in so despite winning 17 of 19 games there was not a state tourna-
ment for us to send our team to, which kind of blows, honestly…I told
the kids we are going to do everything we can to ensure this not hap-
pen again.

Also, 19 games for a summer baseball program isn’t many…We
want to work on that, too.

I gave out an award, too, the first Commander’s Award…I talked
it over with Coach Dave and I said I didn’t want it to be a numbers
award, I wanted it given to the player who gets the most out of his
Legion baseball experience, someone who is a better player on the
field, a better teammate in the dugout and a better young man off the
field and Coach Dave, after consulting with Assistant Coach Rusty,
suggested Billy C, which I immediately approved because I didn’t see
the team play all that much.

Saul, the Training Coordinator at work, emailed us, following up
on the email I had sent Chas three weeks ago about us getting some
lighter jackets up here…All we have are the winter jackets we were
issued at training…They are really warm, ideal for winter, but do us
some zero good in the summer rain.

Anyway, Saul asked for our sizes, adding instead of the light wind-
breakers I requested we will be getting jackets with a removable lining.

That is OK with us…The Doily Delivery Company issues top-notch
gear…We just hope they get here before snow season starts.

Brian suggested I ask Saul about when the hell we are going to
requal on our pistols….We are both overdue…Saul had looked into a
range up here where we could do it but he couldn’t find one and the
last plan we heard was for us to meet him at a range between here
and the branch after one of our short days but who the hell knows
now.

In other firearm news, I noticed for the first time this week the
sights on our pistols glow in the dark…I told Brian this and he said
he already knew, but he was glad I wasn’t too old to notice things like
that.

186 The Diary of a Nobody

Thursday August 14
Conducted my first meeting as Post Commander last night…We

had a good turnout, 16 or so, and I got it in right at 90 minutes, about
what everybody was expecting.

Stanko had sent order of ceremonies and the agenda over, and all
there really was to do was stick to it and rap the gavel when appropri-
ate, which it turns out I really like doing.

We started off with Coach Dave talking about the Post baseball
team’s season…The guys seemed as upset as I was there wasn’t a
state tournament for a 17-2 team to go to….Then I reported on our
trip to the state convention in June…To keep it light I wrapped it up
by whining about the hotel.

There was other routine stuff, too…Stanko read the minutes from
the last meeting, which were approved unanimously and without dis-
cussion, we got volunteers for a color guard at the local think tank’s
summer dinner and for a Labor Day color guard at the air show, which
we do with the local Civil Air Patrol.

The local think tank puts on a nice show…They have a speaker,
which you may or may not like or agree with, but we are granted ac-
cess to the VIP lounge beforehand which includes, among other
things, an open bar…I am not much of a drinker but, as noted here, I
do appreciate an open bar…At this past winter’s meeting I enjoyed
several complimentary glasses of champagne, as well as a pound and
a half of cheese and still presented the colors with the dignity you
would expect and I demand.

Mike our service officer yapped for no small amount of time about
his new office at the county building…Mike is one of the great talkers
in human history and once you get him going it is tough to slow him
down, and in the interest of getting the meeting done before the holi-
days I was obliged to rap the gavel and ask Mike if we could carry
on…Mike graciously said yes.

Our bingo and pull tabs, a couple of fundraisers at the Post bar,
weren’t that profitable….Some of the guys joked this was a manifes-
tation of the failures of the new Commander, but I rapped the gavel a
couple of times and advised everyone it was hardly my fault we had
three $150 winners in one week.

August 2014 187

Pull tabs are a form of gambling…You buy four or five for a buck,
pull the tabs on the card and see if the symbols on the card are a
winner…We usually make a couple hundred bucks a month off them,
but in July we barely made $50...Bingo is usually a very nice fund-
raiser for us…We only do it in the winter and spring because nobody
comes during the summer, but our last one in May only netted us
$20.

It was a lot of fun…Stanko had a nametag for me that said Com-
mander on it and I wore the Legion sweater vest I bought for the
occasion…The only downside was I don’t particularly like the vest…It
is about as heavy as a sweatshirt – I thought it would be lighter – but
The Wife says it looks pretty good on me, so what the hell.

Friday August 15
While I delivered doilies all day The Wife spent a day off visiting

our new cabin…She got inside, too, because repairmen were there
working on the plumbing and the heater…She also stopped by the
town hall and got us signed up for water and sewer service.

There is no mail service in this town…I don’t know what the deal
is…We don’t get mail service at our cabin either and we fork over for
a PO box…I thought the post office was supposed to deliver to every
residence and business in the country and now we find out they not
only do not deliver to some houses, like ours, but they don’t even de-
liver to some towns anymore….The PO boxes in our new town are free,
however.

She also went to the county fair, which is actually in the town
we’re moving to…The Wife loves county fairs and took lots of pics of
sheep and goats and cows and chickens…Plus a variety of pics of the
house.

Officially I like county fairs, too, but I don’t think I am going to go
today.

Saturday August 16
The Wife had a funny line this morning…She was putting on some

deodorant before heading in for a shift at a major retailer…We use
stick deodorant here at the Sparrow cabin, and we both use the same

188 The Diary of a Nobody

brand, and The Wife is notorious for using an awful lot of it and as I
walked passed her as she was wrapping up this morning’s application
she counted aloud:

…seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine…
Now, I don’t know if this Line of the Year or anything like that, but
it made me laugh…I long ago stopped fretting over toilet paper use by
women, but our deodorant consumption continues to baffle me…The
Wife uses enough to stay dry in the Gobi Desert and we buy enough
to provide protection for the Brady Bunch.
Pumped some good iron this morning…The only exercise I am
back up to full strength on is the bench press…Today on the last set
I got 215 up ten times…The normal final set is ten reps of 225.

Sunday August 17
Spent some quality time today with our friend Ann…Ann is in her

upper 80’s and doesn’t look a day over 90…In all candor, I hope my
mind at 88 is as sharp as hers is because even though she is starting
to shrink she is still sharp as a tack…I forget how she and The Wife
met, but they became fast friends and they visit and prattle con-
stantly.

Anyway, we stopped by because The Wife was fretting about Ann’s
new cell phone…Recently Ann came kicking and screaming into the
1990’s with her first mobile communications device, a flip phone, no
less…She and The Wife went and purchased it, but I wasn’t there for
guidance and evidently they got her one of those pay-as-you go plans
and it had run out of money because Ann wasn’t able to make or re-
ceive calls…This was a mistake because Ann is rather well-to-do and
paying for monthly cell service should not ordinarily be a problem.

The Wife started out phoning customer service, but she really does
not have the patience for automated phone systems, preferring to cut
right to the chase, screaming “OPERATOR!!!…GET ME A FUCKING
OPERATOR!!!” even before her call is actually answered…While this
can be fairly entertaining to watch, it seldom results in a quick reso-
lution to whatever the problem is…I keep telling her letting the process
work usually results in more or less timely resolution to even the
toughest customer service matters, generally to no avail.

August 2014 189

So I walked up to The Wife, made a give-it-to-me motion with my
hand and took charge…I called, used the prompts, hit a few buttons
and in a couple of minutes – not bad time, really – had a live human
on the line.

Of course, his English wasn’t all that great, but that’s customer
service nowadays…He did mean well, though, and through no fault of
his own took a while, but soon I had Ann all set up with recurring
payments on her credit card…To make sure everything was in order I
field tested her phone with calls to my personal phone…To make dou-
ble sure, I called her phone, too.

The kid, whose accent was Hispanic, even used the phrase “okie
dokie” which is something my father said…I congratulated him on his
grasp of this seldom-used phrase.

We went to a local diner for dinner, too…The Wife wanted to share
a milk shake with her devoted husband…The cook there should be
given a government pension or something, because he knows, and I
mean knows, that when a growing boy like me asks for his French
fries extra crispy, he means almost effing burnt, not cooked for five (5)
extra seconds.

Monday, August 18
We put the dog down today.
I am not making that up. I came home from work about 1pm or so

and the dog had crapped all over the place…I cleaned it up, texted The
Wife the news and about 20 minutes later, immediately before The
Wife called, the dog ralphed in the back room.

This is not an isolated incident, either…I’ve refrained from men-
tioning them here because it’s, well, kinda gross, but the dog had been
crapping and ralphing fairly regularly recently…Plus she struggles to
get off the couch and walks of more than a few minutes caused severe
limping…Plus she was starting to get snarky at people she used to
like.

So The Wife and I decided it was time…She was at work, so I called
the vet and made an appointment for 4:30…The Wife texted, wonder-
ing if I was up to this by myself – I’m the sensitive type – and seemed
pretty surprised when told I’d already made the appointment and was