The Diary of a Nobody 2013/2014

190 The Diary of a Nobody

about to shave an area on her arm for the needle to be inserted…Later
she called and told me to pick her up from work because all she was
doing was crying.

So I did and we took the dog out to the rodeo grounds for some
final pics and running around.

And then it was time…She weighed in at 95.4 pounds, we sat and
waited a bit because we were early, and then we were escorted to our
usual examination room…The doctor came in and chatted for a bit,
told us to hold on to her tightly, then poked her in the rear with a
needle the doctor said contained a tranquilizer.

She fell asleep in a few minutes…I got on the floor with her as her
legs got tired and held her and petted her and The Wife sat in a chair
and wept…Soon the dog had trouble keeping her eyes open and was
laying down…After about five minutes the doctor came in and stuck
a needle in her arm…He had previously said this would contain a fatal
dose of the same stuff you get when you have surgery…The dog, al-
ready sleeping, breathed deeply a few times, groaned twice and that
was that…She was dead.

Tuesday, August 19
Told Brian about putting the dog down…I was kind of hesitant

because Brian is a dog guy and he might not’ve liked the fact our dog
was not all but already dead when we put her down, but all he did
was say that sucked and fell asleep.

We have had to extend the closing date on the house again…One,
the sellers might not be able to get our objection items done in time
and, two, our loan still has not been approved…The lenders, since late
last week, have been requesting information I had provided a month
ago, during pre-qualification…I don’t understand this…I was even
moved to email customer support, telling them, look, this information
was sent last month, to have it still unverified, much less being re-
quested again, has old Sparrow kind of scrambling here…They wrote
back promptly with some corporate mumbo-jumbo saying this is a
long process and my patience was appreciated and whatnot.

This is not doing me any good, tho, so I began to implement Plans
B and C, though…I cannot put The Wife through another failed home

August 2014 191

purchase…Recall we’ve already had two since last year…The pain is
too much…So I contacted a couple of other companies I did some pre-
liminary work with earlier in the process and one is drooling, abso-
lutely dying to give us a loan…The interest rate is a tad higher, and
we would forfeit our application fees with the first lender, but it is still
a very affordable mortgage...Late today I got an email from the first
lender advising our application had, finally, been processed and had
been delivered to the underwriter for final approval…I told the back-
up plans this, and said I will wait and see what the verdict is before
implementing plans B or C.

Oh, and I am also running for the United States Senate…I have
been invited to a televised candidates forum in the big city next month
and was informed I will not be invited to another, but it’s been a long
couple of days and I do not want to write anymore.

Wednesday August 20
Bonser over today after work and we discussed an invitation I re-

ceived this week to appear on a televised candidate’s forum.
It came Monday from a gentleman named Dominic, who is Director

of Something Or Another at the public TV station in the big city. He
said they would like to have a forum with all the third party candidates
and would I be able to attend?

At first I copped an attitude and thought no, I would not like to
attend…I am on the same ballot as the big boys, I should be on the
same stage as them.

Bonser smacked some sense into me, though, reminding me the
campaign has been in a bit of a lull lately, we are not yet on the tips
of everybody’s tongue and who knows how often we’d get some free TV
time???...His rug rat Matt said if I didn’t do it he wouldn’t vote for me,
tho it should be noted Matt is eight and will still be eight on Election
Day and can’t vote for me anyway.

The Wife said I should probably do it, too.
That settled it…I called Dominic and said I’d be there…There are
about a half-dozen or so third party candidates according to the Sec-
retary of State’s office, with most being independent candi-
dates…Bonser thinks this will be an excellent opportunity to make

192 The Diary of a Nobody

some noise and open some doors for the campaign, even going so far
as to say a good showing could get me included in some debates with
the big boys, tho we both conceded the big boys will probably do eve-
rything they can to avoid this.

What was funny was that our party’s nominee for governor got a
similar phone call from Dominic, and told him sure he’d do it, but it
didn’t seem really fair to leave out the major party candidates, which
I thought was as funny as it was accurate

Also interesting is a debate I did not get invited to…A couple-three
weeks ago Stanko turned me on to a forum put on by a commission
made up of assorted veteran’s groups from around the state, a com-
mission the Legion is a part of…I made some inquiries and yesterday
got an email from a gentleman from the outside group that is putting
it on advising me I will not be invited.

Well, heck, if a veteran running for office can’t get invited to a de-
bate put on by a veteran’s group, what in the hell is going on in this
world???...I wrote him back saying not only am I a veteran, I command
a Legion post and there is a high level of probability I would have in-
sights an audience of veterans would want to hear, but he hasn’t writ-
ten back yet…I’ll keep plugging away.

Saw the Pepsi guy on the route today…I asked what was up:
Oh, just pushing the sugar water.
Oh, so you know? You’re not under any illusions?
He laughed. He knew, but we all got to earn a living. Nobody is
going to give it to us.

Thursday, August 21
Boy, I’ll tell you what, it is different not having a dog.
One, we’ve gone from having poops as the central focus of our lives

to having it drop completely off the charts…It’s also as if you’ve for-
feited your membership in a club… Lots of people here at the cabins
have dogs and walking the dog is a major form of social interaction
that we can’t take part in anymore…Well, I suppose we could go out
for a walk by ourselves and maybe carry the leash with us, but there
doesn’t seem much point in that.

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The Wife, tho, admitted to being grateful for sleeping straight
through the night without having to get up for early morning poops,
and I will acknowledge it’s nice not having to wonder whether or not
you are going have to clean up dog mess when you get home.

No one loves you like a dog, tho…She was always really glad to see
us.

The big news is Sparrow For US Senate received its first endorse-
ment today!!!...I am not making that up!!!...A group called Home State
Blue Republicans gave me their endorsement today.

A couple-three weeks ago I had emailed Tisha, the lady in charge,
for information and she sent back a rather extensive questionnaire
that I filled out and today she wrote back congratulating me.

This is rather rejuvenating, actually…Bonser was right, the cam-
paign has lagged a bit and this was a nice shot in the arm…I got on
Facebook and thanked them and posted the news on the Sparrow For
US Senate website.

Friday, August 22
In news from the garden, The Wife cut the lettuce plants down,

saying they’re done for the season…She reported we got five-six
months out of them…Also, our tomato plant is really big, but all to-
matoes are green…None have turned red, yet and with winter only a
couple of weeks away, we are kinda wondering what the deal is.

The days are getting shorter…This isn’t an astronomical bulletin,
of course, but I just started noticing it today when I needed my flash-
light for pre-trip check on the doily truck…We are on the road by 6am
on Fridays and up till today there had always been enough light to
check the oil and other assorted fluids and the tire tread depth with-
out help.

Not today…It was good to use the flashlight, too because I forked
over for a pretty good one…It was its first use in several months…At
work…Sometimes I’ve used it around the house.

I did some research…On the summer solstice we have about 15
hours of daylight…Six months later, on the winter solstice we have
about nine hours of daylight…So over six months we lose about six

194 The Diary of a Nobody

hours of daylight which comes out to about two minutes a day and it
took a couple of months for ol’ Sparrow to notice the difference.

I deliver most Friday’s and over the course of a 12-13 hour day we
have, perhaps, 20 stops with most of the time spent driving from one
town to another…There is a lot of time to kill and sometimes you kill
it in unorthodox ways.

Take today, for instance…We are driving into town and there is
some road construction going on, enough to hold us up for ten
minutes or so…So I'm sitting there staring at the stop light, which is
flashing yellow what with a worker there directing traffic, and, for rea-
sons which still aren’t immediately clear, I tried to coordinate blinking
my eyes with the flashing yellow light…I am not making that
up!!!...The delay was lengthy, so had some time to knock it out and
eventually I did, managing to coordinate blinking with the flash of the
stoplight and for seven or eight blinks there I had it down so well the
flashing stoplight was dark, which I'm sure is a trait all great US Sen-
ate candidates have.

Saturday August 23
One of the most bitter – so to speak – disputes The Wife and I have

concerns coffee…She prefers a leading national brand and I like the
store brand.

This is because The Wife prefers a good cup of coffee in the morn-
ing while I don’t really care…Between the Navy, assorted guy-type jobs
and my own personal ineptitude at making coffee I have had my share
of lousy coffee over the years and it’s to the point where you could
probably serve me something you could put in your car’s engine for
increased engine performance and I’d like it.

She won the most recent battle, going shopping without me yes-
terday and coming back with her fave national brand…I’m not com-
plaining, really…It’s a good cup of joe, but I can’t really tell the
difference between Maxwell House and Kroger and if I’ll only spend
ten bucks on our new coffee maker you know damn well I’ll save the
couple of bucks and get Kroger coffee.

Back in the gym today, too…I had taken the week off because I
ran out of my pre-workout supplement last week…I went to GNC to

August 2014 195

get some more but the rascals didn’t carry it anymore…So I looked
around a bit and bought another brand but after doing some research
I decided not to use it.

Tuesday we’re on the route and I order some from a bodybuilding
site online…Good idea, too, because for just a mite more than one
container at the workout store cost me I got two containers plus ship-
ping…The shipping was a good deal, too, because I forked over the
cheapest they had and it was here Thursday.

A week off calls for the welcome back workout…It’s about a quar-
ter of the regular workout and one of those and you are ready for max
weights your next time out.

The cat is adjusting to life without the dog nicely…She is back to
sleeping in her old bed…For a long time she hadn’t and we didn’t think
it had anything to do with the dog until this week.

Her bed is kept in the loft, where we sleep…The Wife had made it
three years ago when we got the cat and her sister, who was always
sick and died a couple of months later…They both fit in it then, and
the cat is a tad big for it now, but she likes to curl up in it a lot and
she is back there at night…Previously she had been either sleeping
with me or near me on my old navy blanket.

She also is at the door whenever we come in, presenting herself
for scratches by stretching out and the turning over which is great
because the cat generally does not like to be touched and certainly
not held.

Sunday, August 24
The Jehovah’s witnesses came by yesterday…They had actually

come by my invitation…Recall Lyle and another lady had stopped just
was as I was about to head out for a campaign stop last month…They
were actually looking for one of our neighbors, who had actually given
them another name, which increased the hilarity factor exponentially.

Anyway, we had a very nice, stimulating chat before I had to go,
and I enjoyed it so much I invited them to come back, which they did
yesterday.

My experience with the Jehovah’s Witnesses started as a
kid…Growing up they’d stop by the house from time to time and I’d

196 The Diary of a Nobody

talk to them on the porch…Today I invited them in, tho we are pre-
paring to move and the cabin has boxes all over the place and not too
many places to sit since we threw the couch the now dead dog used
to lay on.

Anyway, I had a lot Lutheran schooling as a kid and tho I am hea-
then right now I can still spit some pretty decent religious game and
we had a nice, substantive 20 minute chat…I told them to come when
The Wife was here.

We did pick up a new couch today…It’s bigger than the other one
and has a queen sleeper to boot and will go great in our new
cabin…It’s sort of tartanish and I gave it the crucial test right off the
bat, laying down and doing some reading on it…It passed with flying
colors.

Monday August 25
Am currently reading Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules

Verne…I had, a few years back read Around the World in 80 Days and
really enjoyed and I had picked up Journey at the library with The
Wife getting her mitts on it first so I am just now getting around to it.

One of the fun things about reading in the second decade of the
21st century is Googling places you read about, including a church in
Copenhagen the characters are visiting which features a spire with a
winding staircase going to the top…Well, turns out the church is real
and is still standing and there were enough pics to reinforce the fact
what my mind’s eye sees is usually completely unrelated to what the
writer is describing.

With the dog gone the cat is free to be completely adorable again,
as opposed to spending most of her time avoiding the dog…Today I
was sitting on our new couch enjoying some of last night’s leftover
spaghetti – which I had made, by the by…The cat does not trust the
couch yet and won’t get onto the seating area so she was left to lean
up and extend a paw or to try to requisition some spaghetti by hopping
on a nearby table and peering in…Finally, when I’d had enough I put
the bowl on the table for her enjoyment.

August 2014 197

This is funny…The cat has food available 24 hours a day but she
prefers whatever daddy is eating, when he is eating it, wherever he
happens to be.

Another noted item from not having a dog is no longer having to
hoard those plastic grocery store bags…Since we no longer need to
pick poops outside (or inside, for that matter) we now only need them
for trash bags.

Today on the route Brian mentioned how he is now stronger with
his left hand than he is with his right hand…I grunted something and
Brian went on to note this is because we carry our coal bags, which
sometimes contain boxes of coin, in our left hands so we can keep our
right hands free to shoot criminals with.

Well, this hasn’t been the lead story here or anything like that, but
I noticed that in the weight room, particularly when doing an exercise
called the concentration, which involves sitting on a bench, leaning
over, and curling a dumbbell up to your shoulder…I can usually do
one or two more reps with my left hand at the max weight…I am right
handed and it had always been the other way around.

Tuesday August 26
I am through writing about buying a house…Our closing date, for

a couple of reasons not completely our fault, has been moved to the
19th…The Wife and I are both frustrated and I am not writing any-
thing until we either have the keys in our hand or are completely
homeless.

The branch sent up our new jackets today with Route 24…Like
everything else we’ve been issued, it is quality gear, with a removable
liner and zippers on the side to make it easier to access our weapon
and whatnot…Recall a couple of weeks ago we had asked for new jack-
ets because our other ones were winter jackets without a removable
liner that were a smidgen too warm on rainy summer days…Great
timing, too, because it has been raining so hard the past week or an-
imals are starting to pair up.

Record time today on the route!!!...I am not making that up…We
were out of Town A after meeting Route 24 well before 10am and we
had the favor of the Doily Delivering Gods all day…We only had two

198 The Diary of a Nobody

(2) Doily Dispensing Machines, too, not seven, which was key…We
should’ve had three but one bank forgot to send in their order, obliging
the branch to send up another route to service it, which was a pain in
the neck because drivers and doily deliverers are not just loitering
around the branch waiting for assignment, they commandeered a
route from the Big City, took them off their normal route and sent
them up.

Whatever it takes, because it helped us get a record day in… We
were in Town B at 4:45pm, a full 15 minutes off our previous best
time and a full 35 minutes before Route 25 got there.

Reeds, who owns the cabins where we live now, showed ours to a
prospective tenant today…Reed is being very gracious about my in-
sistence on not giving notice until everything is set because I do not
want to be homeless…He said there is enough interest so that even if
we do give notice a week or so before we move out we should not have
to spend any money paying for a cabin we are not living in…This is
very nice of Reed.

Wednesday August 27
Was treated to extended pets from the cat this morning…I had just

walked in the door from the gym…The Wife was still sleeping – she’s
been picking up some relatively late shifts at a major retailer – and
the cat presented herself at the door before I’d even closed it…She
stretched out and extended her paws, the definitive sign she’s looking
for some pets…So I obliged and was treated to a nice, long session,
my longest in quite some time…The cat has definitely recovered from
over a year of living with the dog.

You gotta be careful though…She will let you know you are done
rather abruptly and for Pete’s sake don’t try to pick her up because
she still doesn’t like that…Right now as I write this she is lying on the
couch next to me sleeping.

Confirmed my appearance at the big city’s public TV station’s stu-
dios for the big third party candidate debate on the 11th…I’ve already
got the day off and everything…I talked to Dominic, who is not only
arranging it, but moderating it as well…After we chatted on the phone

August 2014 199

he sent me an email double confirming the date, adding it will be ra-
ther an informal, conversational style debate…There won’t be any
opening statements, but we will be allowed a one minute closing state-
ment….Dominic said in addition to me, one independent candidate
and the Unity Party candidate will be there…I didn’t ask him why he
was excluding the major party candidates…That would’ve been funny.

Thursday August 28
Completed a couple of candidate surveys today…One was for the

League of Women Voters…I forget the name of the other one, but it
was a rather conservative organization, you could tell by the questions
they asked (“Should marriage be a contract between one woman and
one man?”, “Is abortion ever OK?”) they were looking for conservative
answers.

The League of Women Voter’s survey was rather short, just three
questions after the introductory stuff…I told them our economy was
the biggest issue facing our country and that I proposed a flat tax of
ten percent on citizens and businesses, which would produce a flour-
ishing economy with a job for pretty much everyone who wanted one
and was able to hold one down.

They also asked about income inequality…I answered the govern-
ments only obligation here was to provide a free market so everyone
could get the most out of their talents.

Also emailed with Dominic at the PBS station again…I asked about
makeup…I told him I don’t have much hair and I might need all the
help I can get to avoid a glare coming off the top of my head…I should
probably ask if we will be sitting or standing…I don’t particularly care,
but it would be nice to know so I can start getting mentally prepared.

Met with Stanko the Post adjutant this evening, too…Over a brew-
ski – which I presume went on some magical Commander’s tab be-
cause I didn’t pay for it, he just presented it – we went over the color
guard we are providing for the air show this weekend and my sigFri-
dayned my first official documents at Post commander, too.

Based on Stanko’s typed program/script, which was confusing
enough, and my notes, virtually indecipherable, that attempted to

200 The Diary of a Nobody

clarify his program/script, I have some zero clue what we will be do-
ing…We’ll go over it Saturday beforehand, so we should be OK…This
isn’t the Marine Corps Silent Drill Team…We’ll march in with the kids
from the Civil Air Patrol, I’ll give some close order drill commands,
Chris G will sing the national anthem, I’ll say some appropriate re-
marks, we’ll play the official hymns of each service, there will be a
flyover and we’ll march off….I was able to carry off the Memorial Day
ceremony, so we should be all right.

The documents were a form letter encouraging members, like
Sparrow, to pay their dues, and a couple certificates of appreciation.

Brian is taking tomorrow off so, combined with Labor Day on Mon-
day, he can have a four-dayer…I will drive down to Town A to pick up
a driver…Despite seeing the schedule I forgot who it was, tho I do
recall I’d never met him, so it’s not our fave Melis.

Friday August 29
Brian taking the day off foiled my plans for our shortest work week

yet…Official figures weren’t consulted, but with a normal 12-hour Fri-
day we could come in at, more or less, 32 hours for the week, which
isn’t very many…We get paid for a full week whether we work it or not,
so anything over a normal Friday and ol’ Sparrow, according to his
math, at least, is working for free.

It was a fiasco from the start…I was in Town A at the usual time
but Route 21 didn’t bring up a driver for me…Chuck, their driver, said
the guy they had originally assigned no longer worked for the company
and whomever the branch was able to rustle up would be driving up
in a company van later…Exactly who it was, or when he would get
here, wasn’t known.

Turned out to be a bit less than an hour before we were on the
road…Some might recall meeting Heleke earlier this summer when
Brian was on his reserve time….He is from Ethiopia originally…An
amiable sort, he usually works in the vault at the branch…Heleke is
a very careful driver on any road that isn’t straight and flat and since
we are in the Rockies and not the Great Plains we lost some time.

Not that I am complaining…Too slow is better than too fast…I’ll
take it.

August 2014 201

It did hold us up, tho, of course…We didn’t get back to Town A
after the route until 6:30pm, a time I am sometimes home at on Fri-
days, and Freddie gave us some funny crap about it because his route
was done more or less on time and they waited over an hour for us,
but that’s the way it is in the doily delivery business sometimes…As
Uncle Duke says, if you can’t stand the heat, get the hell out of Naga-
saki.

Heleke said he was 28 and soon will go back to Ethiopia and find
a wife…Under direct questioning from me he said that both an ar-
ranged marriage or a wife he personally selected would be available to
him…He added he tended to favor a wife he picked, tho he noted a lot
of arranged marriages appear to be good marriages in Ethiopia.

The seasons are starting to change…The leaves on a few trees are
turning color and I used the heater in the truck for the first time this
season on the way down.

Saturday August 30
The Wife made sure I was ready for my appearance with the Legion

at the local air show today…When I woke up this morning not only
were my shirt and pants hanging up, but no less than two (2) t-shirts,
underwear and socks were hung up, ready for duty.

I made oatmeal for breakfast…When it was about ready I went
looking for some bowls to put them in…I couldn’t find any.

Me: Honey, are all the bowls packed?”
The Wife: Yes.
Then I found myself looking for a knife…A knife isn’t a key imple-
ment in the eating of oatmeal, of course, but I needed to butter some
toast…Those have been packed, too…Or at least knives you’d want to
butter toast with have been packed…I made due with a steak knife.
Found out about a debate I was not invited to today…It’s next Sat-
urday and is being put on by a group in the western part of the state
and I am sure my invitation got lost in the mail….Bonser wanted to
write them a scathing indictment demanding my inclusion, but I said
no and instead sent them a rather gracious email introducing myself
as a working man and a veteran with liberty solutions to our nation’s
problems. I mentioned I was not your typical third party whackjob

202 The Diary of a Nobody

railing against the establishment and invited them to look at my cam-
paign’s website.

The Post flag detail at the air show went very well…The weather
was sunny and warm and the Civil Air Patrol kids did their rifle drill
very well and us old farts managed to carry our end off with no small
amount of dignity even if we don’t march all that well anymore…Heck,
I was never particularly good at marching and now I don’t even bother
trying to march in step anymore because I usually end up tripping…I
made some remarks and we played the official songs of all five
branches before marching out…The only downside was the whole she-
bang only took about half of the 20 minutes we were allotted.

Sunday August 31
A very leisurely Sunday…I pumped some iron and The Wife and I
went out to dinner and I am sure you are as grateful for a short entry
as I am.

September 2014

Monday September 1
Enjoyed a nice day off today…You can’t beat three-dayers…I was

up pretty early and at the gym then went and enjoyed lunch with The
Wife, whom a major retailer obliged to work today…I am hopping to-
morrow on the doily truck…Recall I do this every few Tuesdays to give
Brian a break and it will be a long, physical day and I am going to get
my rest tonight.

We started running some social media ads…Bonser’s rug rat Matt
– who is turning out to be our Advertising Coordinator – was key, here,
helping us out with the technical aspects of placing them…It’s not
really too hard, I could’ve nuked it out myself, but you can’t beat ex-
pert advice.

We tend to like social media advertising here at Sparrow For US
Senate because it is not terribly expensive and you can target very
specific segments. For example, our first ad touts my support of peo-
ple to marry whoever the hell they want, even it’s a guy marrying an-
other guy or two girls tying the knot. I don’t particularly want to marry
a guy, but as a citizenry we simply can’t pick and choose who gets
which liberty. Everyone must have the same liberties because either
all of us are free or none of us are free which is a hell of a line if you
ask me and is completely original.

Tuesday, September 2
Back at it today, after a nice three-dayer…It is not unreasonable

to expect snow here anytime between Labor and Memorial days but it
was sunny and warm the whole way today.

The only flaw in the day was following up last Tuesday’s record-
breaking short day with a 15-and-half hour marathon….Good gravy,
it was one of those days where it was just one thing after another…We
made good time to Town A but then it started…We had our bi-weekly
Doily Dispensing Machine (DDM) down there and recall I'm hopping

204 The Diary of a Nobody

today and I have done that machine exactly once in the few months
since it was added to our route and even tho there are instructions it
takes a while when you have consult them for everything.

Then we had to do an DDM that is usually done on Monday be-
cause the other route didn’t get it done…We are not entirely sure why
the other route didn’t get it done…I know it was a holiday, but the
DDM is outside and is always accessible, and the doilies had been
prepped for insertion, but who the heck knows?

We didn’t have instructions for it, either, so I had to get step by
step instructions over the radio from Kyle back at the branch…They’re
really not that tough to do…You tell the machine you are servicing it,
get some receipts that show the current balance, tell it how much you
are putting in and then swap the doilies.

Machines vary, tho…Adding to today’s hilarity was the fact Mr Sun
was shining over my left shoulder directly on the screen, making it
very difficult to see what I was doing without throwing in some inter-
pretive dance moves….This took about 40 minutes….It went from
there.

I ate well tho, and drank a lot of water and was strong the whole
day despite my advanced age.

Tomorrow will be longer than normal, too, as Saul is coming up
from the branch to requal us on our weapons and to provide some
other, no doubt critical, training…I think we are supposed to fire every
year and I suppose that means within 365 days of your previous qual-
ification, which Brian and I are well past, tho I suppose it could mean
every calendar year, which I doubt.

I haven’t fired my weapon, a Smith and Wesson M&P 40, since my
initial qualification last spring…I do some dry firing every now and
then, mainly when I want to think I’m cool, but I am not a weapons
guy and I am not even sure I can disassemble it for cleaning any-
more…If the side a barn weren’t too far away I could probably even hit
that.

Saul pronounces his name SAW-oool…Those zany Hispanics like
to mix it up, tho…In the Navy a long time ago we had a kid named
Raul report aboard…We started off calling him RAW-oool but he said

September 2014 205

no, it’s Rawl…He even wrote out the words ‘haul’ and ‘Paul’ for com-
parison.

Wednesday, September 3
We were late to our gun requal today…We had done the usual

Wednesday route and had headed out in good time, but the truck
started to overheat on the way up the mountain out of town, so Brian
pulled it over for what turned out to be 45 minutes….Some of the
coolant was even spewing out, but the branch had sent up a case of
coolant a while back, so we had enough.

This obliged Saul to wait for two-three hours…We were shooting
at a public range about an hour and a half out of town in the middle
of nowhere…I don’t think Saul really minded…He had brought a cou-
ple of his own, personal weapons and I think he got there early on
purpose so he could get some range time with them and he said he
was enjoying his time out in the middle of nowhere.

In addition to our requals, we got to shoot all 45 rounds of our
service ammo, too, because the company changed the ammo we were
using…Brian and Saul then had a brief, not-too-interesting discus-
sion about some of the more technical aspects of our new ammo while
I watched some clouds pass because I understood none of it…I full
support our Second Amendment right to bear arms, however outside
of professional responsibilities I have never exercised them and I can
discuss ammo about as intelligently as I can discuss animal hus-
bandry.

I shot 570 out of 600…You shot a total of 60 rounds from assorted
distances and positions and you got ten (10) points for every round
that found the appointed place on the target and a passing score is
480…Brian got a 590.

We had to take a 61 question firearms test, too…I got four wrong
and Brian got one wrong…We both got the next to last question
wrong…It had asked whether or not it was OK to yell “POLICE!” in a
confrontation where your gun is drawn…Brian and I both said FALSE,
on the assumption you don’t want to go IDing yourself as a cop in that
situation but Saul said no, it’s all right, because it could also mean
you summoning the police and not IDing yourself as one.

206 The Diary of a Nobody

This led to one of my two good lines…We were in the truck, all
done with our test and some customer service training we were sen-
tenced to when a civilian pickup drove past us and parked
nearby…Both Brian and Saul noticed the truck did not have license
plates…This bothered law-and-order Saul who made some comment
about it.

Well, Saul, why don’t you go out and yell “POLICE!” at them?
My other funny came during the customer service training…It was
pretty basic stuff but Brian and I both took part in good spirits…To-
wards the end Saul was reviewing some stuff leading me to smile and
sigh audibly and remark:
Whatever…
Then I made a stroking motion with my right hand commonly as-
sociated with the act known as masturbation which earned ol’ Spar-
row a nice chuckle.
I don’t know if either will be Line of the Year or anything, but they
weren’t too bad.
Saul also brought up a new jacket for me…Turns out the one they
had sent up last week was way too big, and Saul brought one that was
a size smaller…It’s prior service and will need to be washed, but it will
be great on cool days when we don’t need the really warm jacket we
were originally issued.
I was thinking this was the most remote professional training I’ve
ever received, out in the middle of nowhere like we were, but then I
remembered no, 400 feet below the surface of the ocean on a subma-
rine was more remote.

Thursday, September 4
The Wife and I have both given up on the tomatoes...It is more or

less academic because up here the growing season can end any time
after Labor Day but the fact remains neither of us know what in the
hell is going on…For me, that’s hardly a bulletin; I have zero gardening
skills and am barely qualified to water plants…The Wife, tho, is an
experienced gardener and even she is flummoxed as to why all our

September 2014 207

tomatoes are still green…They are numerous and plump and presum-
ably juicy, too, but they are all still green, about as edible as a cutting
board.

After some thought I decided to go with a navy blue suit, a light
blue shirt and my red paisley tie for my third party candidate debate
next week at the big city PBS station…In preparation The Wife took
that ensemble to the cleaners.

Actually, The Wife took both my navy blue suits to the cleaners…I
was only going to send one, along with a light blue shirt, but The Wife
said why not send two suits and two shirts in case I spill some-
thing???...Sparrow being Sparrow, that is rock solid advice…I have
other suits, but I am fixed on navy, so I sent my second navy suit as
well as the pink shirt to the cleaners, too.

Friday September 5
I utilized the Sneak-A-Cup feature on the coffee pot this morn-

ing…I am not entirely sure why…I was up in plenty of time to putz
around and get ready for work but for some reason I wanted coffee
right this very minute and was unable to wait a couple of more
minutes…This reminded me of the time my brother was visiting me in
the bachelor days before Sneak-A-Cup technology and he wanted cof-
fee right now and pulled the pot out while it was still brewing, making
a bit of a mess neither of us could be bothered to clean up immedi-
ately.

I got home about 7 or so and The Wife’s son Allan was there, here
for a few days…God bless him, he had the BBQ going and the kid
knows how to barbecue, too…He prefers his steaks raw, too, basically
just wipe the cow’s ass and trotting it out…Why he even bothers with
charcoal is beyond me….Probably tradition…I like some red in my
steak, but The Wife made him throw hers back on for a few minutes.

We also had fresh green beans from what remains of our gar-
den…These, I think, are my fave veggie from our garden…They are
growing right next to our green tomatoes which continue to sit there
plump and juicy, a deep green, mocking us and doing us some zero
good.

208 The Diary of a Nobody

Allan said he can help me clean my gun, too…For some reason we
didn’t do it when we qualified, which I was more or less counting on
because outside of work I do not otherwise exercise my Second
Amendment rights, so it’s not as if there is extra gun cleaner lying
around the house, so I will have to go buy some, which I will submit
for reimbursement…Fortunately Brian reminded me how to disassem-
ble our weapons and it isn’t all that difficult so I should be OK.

Saturday, September 6
Tonight’s burger recipe, suggested by yours truly and imple-

mented by St. Allan, was a mixture of one-half beef and – and I am
not making this up – one-half bacon.

You know, there are some things I cannot talk intelligently about
and some things I can talk intelligently about. One of the things I do
have significant street cred in is burgers…These were really good, im-
mediately making their way to the all-time Sparrow medal stand…We
forked over for some primo cheese, too, and The Wife made the condi-
ment tray which included grilled onions.

Allan and I cleaned my gun, too…Saul forgot to bring the gun
cleaning kit with him when we requaled on Wednesday, so we were
left to fend for ourselves…Brian is armed to the teeth and has a whole
storeroom of gun cleaning solvents and implements, but I currently
do not exercise my Second Amendments rights and I had to go buy a
gun cleaning kit…Cost me $40 bucks, too, which will be submitted to
the branch for reimbursement.

It wasn’t too difficult…We found a video online which made it even
easier and I did a pretty thorough job, too.

Sunday September 7
Had some fun with Allan at a local bar today, watching his Chicago

Bears play football…The bar was packed, too…Recall we don’t keep a
TV here at Casa Sparrow, and this was the first non-Super Bowl NFL
game I’d seen in a long time.

September 2014 209

It was a lot of fun…We had some brewskies and while we weren’t
starving we had some deep fried pork after the game while watching
the 49ers name the score against the evil Cowboys.

Then ol’ Sparrow was clutch…Based on the high quality of the
pork appetizer, and tossing in my past experience at the place – or
maybe it was just the instincts all the great ones have – I deeply sus-
pected an order of onions rings would have a high level of merit.

They did…Allan gave them a nine on his personal rating scale and
I immediately sent them to Sparrow Onion Ring Medal Stand, along
with the onion rings at White Castle and this joint in Vegas.

This really happened: we weren’t actually sitting at the bar, but
at a counter immediately behind it when two spots at the bar opened
up…Two other guys at the counter spotted it, too…They deferred to
us, but I am infernally polite and insisted they take it when Allan sug-
gested we flip for it…No one could immediately produce a coin so – in
a burst of inspiration that could only be called divine – I pulled out
my American Express card and told the guy to tell me if the last num-
ber of card number was even or odd…As it turned out the last number
was three (3) and he said odd, so they scammed the seats at the bar.

The cat is not happy with Allan’s visit…She spends most of her
time in the loft, tho from time to time she will favor us with her
presence downstairs, where she walk within a few feet of Allan and
hiss, which is really funny because Allan is a nice guy who really
doesn’t deserve to be hissed at.

The cat isn’t even sleeping in her normal place, no doubt fearful
Allan would come up to the loft and slit her throat, and instead slept
in a corner where even I had a tough time finding her.

Monday, September 8
Gave St Allan the night off from cooking…Recall his first night,

Friday, he BBQ’d rib eyes and Saturday, of course, was the historic
50/50 beef/bacon burger night and last night he produced a tri tip
that Providence would not have minded taking credit for…He also did
roasted potatoes last night.

210 The Diary of a Nobody

We took him to Wolfe’s the marvelous pizza place in the town we
are moving to later this month.

A bear attacked our dumpster last night…There was the usual
trash strewn around the complex, including two piles near our cabin,
which isn’t anywhere near the dumpster.

This was almost interesting, if you think about it…The bear went
through the trouble of carrying two (2) piles of trash a fair distance
away from the dumpster…We are not entirely sure why, but we
blamed Allan and his BBQ last night for drawing in our bear.

Tuesday September 9
It rained all day today…Every minute…From town to Town A to

Town B and back, it rained all 14 hours…Sometimes hard, sometimes
a sprinkle, but usually something light to steady.

This really doesn’t slow you down all that much, tho…We have
quality tires and the truck weighs 12.999999999 tons so it’s not as if
we’re in danger of sliding off the road, tho you do tend to keep your
distance behind others and respect curves a bit more than on a dry
road.

I am ready to go for the third party debate Thursday…I am heading
out tonight, tho, because I don’t want to leave too early Thursday
morning…The big city is about three hours away and it is not reason-
able to expect I would get snowed on the way in, but you never
know…So I will leave tomorrow afternoon.

St Allan left early this morning…I fasted all day because, thanks
to him and his relentless efforts on the grill, I wasn’t really hungry all
day…Maybe I’ll be hungry by the holidays.

Maybe not…We all ate an awful lot while he was here.

Wednesday September 10
Made it to the big city about 7pm…This after being cut off on the

way down by a Doily Delivery Company (DDC) armored truck!!!...I am
not making that up….I was actually very close to where we meet Route
21 on Fridays when BOOM!!!, like a bolt of lightning the DDC truck
goes from a driveway on the right to the left turn lane in an astonish-
ingly brief period of time.

September 2014 211

In order to establish fiscal responsibility street cred – and in keep-
ing with my own personal philosophy of not spending a whole hell of
a lot on lodging for myself – I am staying in a chain motel.

I brought two (2) suits…For maximum variety they are both navy
blue…I think we’ve discussed this before…I like navy blue, I think it’s
my very best look and I’ve learned thinking you look your best is really
good for ol’ Sparrow’s morale.

My attempt to lose 20 pounds this week, however, failed.
In shirt news, I brought both the pink and blue shirts and while
right now I am leaning towards the blue shirt and red paisley tie, you
rule out the pink shirt with the blue tie with little pink and light blue
boxes at your peril.
I have no idea what questions they are going to ask, but I Dominic
did say we would have a minute for a closing statement and I came
up with a pretty good one on the way down…I ran it by The Wife and
Bonser – and why the hell my campaign manager isn’t here is not
immediately clear – and they both like it.
It is based on the theory Sparrow will get more votes if people think
he’s a regular guy, not some misfit railing against the establishment,
so while I do mention our government is a fractured, bickering fiasco
I also invite everyone to accept the challenge of making our govern-
ment right and that together we can make a difference.
This text will also serve as the basis for the video I am shooting at
channel nine later in the afternoon…I am allowed up 90 seconds for
that one so with the extra time I will mention I support a ten percent
flat tax on citizens and business because low taxes and free markets
will produce a flourishing economy, that I support gay marriage be-
cause a nation conceived in liberty must extend every liberty to every
citizen and that I support allowing other nations the dignity of con-
ducting their affairs without U-S interference because this will make
for a more peaceful world.
I am, refreshingly and completely, unnervous…Kinda like the
championship basketball game I reffed over the winter…I have not
made a big deal about it in this diary, but I have been interested in
our government as long as I can remember and have wanted to run

212 The Diary of a Nobody

for the United States Senate since I was a boy with no guarantee it
would ever happen.

Well, here it is, my chance…I’m prepared and expect to do well.

Thursday September 11
Despite the fact the motel’s mattress would probably stop a bullet,

I slept very well and was up well before 6am, practiced my closing
remarks and left for the studio a couple of hours early because I’d
never been there before and didn’t want to risk being late.

Needless worry…Even with getting lost a couple of times I was
there a bit less than an hour early…Befitting a candidates for the
United States Senate, I was escorted to a conference room, with coffee,
and left to my own devices…I took some selfies, called The Wife and
practiced my closing remarks, tho I had been doing that all morning
and had it down pretty good.

I never saw Doctor Steve and Bill until they entered the studio…If
they were early they were sent to their own conference rooms, maybe
because the station thought we’d fight or something.

I sat in the middle and was the first one in…The three of us sat
next to each other, with the two hosts,

Dominic and Eric, off to our left…The sound guy came and clipped
my microphone on and then Bill and Doctor Steve came in and I stood
up which was wrong because my microphone to fall off, obliging the
sound guy to put it back on.

Then a nice lady came and put some makeup on my nose and face
and we drew names out of a hat to decide the order of our closing
remarks…I drew two.

It was just like sports officiating!!!...When you’re out doing a game,
especially a big game, you block out the crowd and worry about offi-
ciating…Today I ignored the cameras and had a conversation with the
host…It was easy, and I nailed, utterly nailed, my closing remarks.

The only down side was it only lasted 30 minutes and we weren’t
able to discuss every issue…An hour would’ve been nice.

Then it was off to channel 9…Recall they are letting all statewide
candidates post videos of up to 90 seconds…This went really well….In-
stead of a studio they filmed it at the update desk…I know it’s the

September 2014 213

update desk because there was a hand mirror there that said ‘Update
Desk” on it…I did it in one take, without a teleprompter, which wasn’t
offered…I asked if I could see it before signing off on it and they said
sure and I went over to the engineer’s desk and he played it for me
and it wasn’t too bad…Certainly, I could’ve done a few more takes but
there was no guarantee it would be any better and except for one in-
stance it was really good, so we went with the first take.

Friday September 12
Holy mail in ballots, the PBS station had the debate on their web-

site this morning!!!...This is even before it airs later tonight, and the
early reviews are that I did well…Bonser said I was thoughtful and
substantive and The Wife said she was proud of me and followers
chimed in, too, saying well done and other nice things.

Personally, I agree…Well, except for my face made for radio…I was
happy.

The channel 9 video should be up Monday and they also sent a
nine question survey for me to answer to accompany the video…Actu-
ally, they sent the survey last week or so and the deadline was today
and I just got it in in time.

The Wife bought a new grill today, too…When she said it only cost
$50 or so I thought it couldn’t be much more than the old one we have
now, which can hold a couple-three steaks and not much more, this
one was humongous!!!...It even had a smaller grill on the side, sorta
like a motorcycle sidecar, that The Wife said could double as a
smoker…With summer over the store was looking to move product
and had slashed prices to the point even The Wife couldn’t say no.

I know a pledge not to write about the house until we either closed
or were homeless was issued, but things are looking good.

Saturday September 13
With overnight temperatures tending to dip below freezing now,

The Wife has cut the tomatoes and brought them inside…They are all
still green…Well, one did turn sorta orange-ish, but it was promptly
eaten by a squirrel…Some of the green ones showed signs of squirrel
nibbling, too.

214 The Diary of a Nobody

Got back in the gym today…Between St Allan’s visit and the trip
to the big city I’d been eating like pig…I moved some weight, as usual,
and sat in the hot springs, too, which I tell myself has significant
health benefits, but is actually probably just indulgent.

In other news, I am going to need some new warm gloves this win-
ter…The old ones were lost last spring, last seen in the doily truck on
a cold day…I may have left them in a business doing a delivery or they
may still be in the truck somewhere, although there aren’t that many
places they can be.

I’d had these for years, since the bachelor days, when my friend
Ann tried to set me up with her sister at a ski resort a bunch of us
went to years ago…(This would not be our current friend Ann, who is
88, but another Ann.) This was the worst set up in dating history…She
despised me, and that was when she was feeling warm towards
me…We did everything but exchange gunfire.

Sunday September 14
The Wife was excommunicated from the Mormon church to-

day…Well, actually, she requested removal from their records, but we
got some mileage out of joking she would be burned at the stake as a
heretic.

The Wife had not been a practicing Mormon since she was a teen-
ager, and, honestly, I only vaguely recall her mentioning it once or
twice in the past.

They did not have the stake burning, waiting for her, on our arri-
val. There was just the bishop, a tall, trim rather nice man about our
age who rode up on his bike while we were waiting outside the door.
We sat down in his office and chit-chatted for a bit and he explained
all The Wife really had to do was write a letter stating she would like
to be taken off register or roster or whatever they call it.

In the letter The Wife noted the good bishop had explained the
“consequences” of leaving the church, which caused the bishop to
note wryly that wasn’t the best possible term she could’ve selected
and me to quip “…like forfeiting eternal life...” which, while perhaps
not Line of the Year, earned a smile from the bishop.

September 2014 215

Had a below average workout today…I had lifted yesterday with
great strength, but today was a step down…Not too big a step, but
usually I am good for max weights on consecutive days, but today,
no…I suspect I didn’t get enough sleep last night, but who knows???

And really, in the Sparrow workout the actual weight is aca-
demic…Key is on your last set reps eight, nine and ten are a challenge
with number ten the last one you can do with proper form, known as
to failure in the gym, and I got that in so really it was a good workout.

We took delivery of the new grill today, too…We paid a neighbor,
who has a pickup truck, ten bucks to help us out…The Wife is ec-
static…One, she got a great deal on it, a bit more than two-thirds off
because the store wanted to get rid of it and two, it’s a nice and big
and has a smoker, too..

Monday September 15
Brian took the day off to test a police department near the big city,

so our old friend Melis drove up for the route today…He’s doing
well...It’s been noted here he wears his bullet-proof vest even when
driving and he is so pro-safety he asked if he could buy mine, because
I don’t wear mine, it’s actually sitting at the bottom of our closet. (The
company splits the cost with us so I’m not out too much money.)

I asked him if he wanted an extra to sleep in at night, and he
laughed but gave some vague answer as to why he actually was inter-
ested in purchasing it…It’s academic because it’s not for sale…You
never know when a circumstance may arise where I might want to
wear it. The only one I could come up with offhand was doing a route
out of the big city one day, tho that is not likely to happen.

The Wife spent the afternoon seasoning her new grill…This was a
rather involved process, entailing the following of specific directions
in the owner’s manual…It involved some special sort of wood, proba-
bly imported from who knows where that I was obliged to drive cross
town with her for.

I am not entirely sure of – nor was I completely interested in –
every detail of the process, but to shorthand you, it involved putting
a layer of cooking oil all over the inside, then starting a really large fire
with the very special wood we drove crosstown for.

216 The Diary of a Nobody

The Wife’s quote on the grill:
Now all we need is a mastodon to cook.
It’s a pretty big grill.

Tuesday September 16
The Wife, completely captivated with her new grill, had a steak

waiting for me when I came home from work today…It was a hell of a
steak, too, a nice t—bone, grilled to perfection as they say, from a
local, grass fed cow.

The route was a fiasco…Our doily dispensing machines (DDM)
gave us troubles all day and it was tough finding someone at the
branch who could help us…Plus, we had about 45 minutes or so of
road construction delays which didn’t help, either.

The big news is Chas, the branch manager who had the good sense
to hire me last year, has gone….Kyle, one of the 17 people we seem to
answer to at the branch, said he is moving his family to Texas, where
he’s from originally…There is not an assistant branch manager to
move into his spot, so I am not entirely sure who’s in charge now…Kyle
gave us a list of four (4) people – including Kyle – we could contact
when we need something.

Wednesday September 17
Got us a home phone number today…This despite the fact it is the

second decade of the 21st century and we need a home phone line like
we need a hole in the head…This is our own home, not some rental,
and a home phone line adds an air of permanence…Or, rather, I think
it adds an air of permanence…Even if it doesn’t, I wanted a home
phone line so I got one so there.

It wasn’t expensive either…We combined it with our internet ser-
vice for a pretty reasonable monthly fee.

Got a great number, too…The local prefix is easy to remember and
the last four I picked out myself from three or four options, with the
last two numbers being the number I (mostly) wore playing sports as
a kid.

September 2014 217

Just for funsies I’ve been calling it off and on, to test it out and
stuff…The standard “this number has been disconnected or is no
longer in service” recording comes on without even ringing.

Thursday September 18
Both The Wife and I were in the gym early today…The Wife, who

figures she might as well put the gym membership she worked for to
good use, has been going regularly recently, but this is the first time
she’s been up bright and early to go with me…She has already lost a
few pounds and is feeling really good.

Not that we are trying to close on a house after 18 months of trying
or anything like that, but I took care of turning on the gas at the new
cabin today, too…Not that we are expecting to move or anything like
that…I know I pledged not to write anything about our attempt to buy
a house because there were times the process has been one big, frus-
trating fiasco, but as recently noted, things are going pretty well right
now.

Actually, the gas is already turned on, and we are leaving the gas
on here...Only the names the accounts are in is changing.

I gave 30 days’ notice to Reed, the landlord, too…He has been very
flexible, graciously putting up with our delays because I told him I was
not going to give notice until everything was etched in stone, which
could’ve meant Sparrow would be paying rent for a cabin he wasn’t
staying in.

As it turns out, Reed has somebody already lined up to move in at
the first of the month, and with our first mortgage not due until No-
vember, the Sparrows will not have a house payment in October.

The Wife just realized there is a high degree of probability we will
be moving in a week or so…We are not ready to move, tho we do have
over three dozen boxes already packed, there is still more to do.

Friday September 19
Broke dick!
We were on our way to meet Route 21 at the end of the route and

were about halfway there – with old Sparrow dozing in and out of a
pretty good nap in the back seat – when Brian used the name of the

218 The Diary of a Nobody

human form of the Christian triumvirate in a manner inconsistent
with praise…The truck had lost power and declined to accelerate when
encouraged to do so by pressing the appropriate pedal.

Well, hell…We were making some pretty good time, too…The good
news was the towing company had both their trucks out and it was
only a bit more than three hours before they could get to us…Then,
for reasons I am neither sure of nor interested in, it took another hour-
and-half to get us up on the truck…Brian was outside with the tow
truck guy while I manned the driver’s seat and texted The Wife…When
he tried to move the winch we generally only moved a few inches and
I am not entirely sure how they solved the problem.

So a 17-and-a-half hour day, where I spent most of the last eight
hours sitting down doing nothing…Or laying down…The tow truck’s
cab had a bed in the back…Recall I’ve spent a fair amount of time in
cab sleepers while our truck was being towed and I am a recognized
expert in the field…This one gets high marks for roominess, but the
cushions weren’t made up at all…Instead of a several pillows I as
obliged to rest my head on a bright yellow foul weather (the driver also
works holding a sign on a road construction crew) and a rolled up
rug…I didn’t ask why there was a rolled up rug in the sleeper of a tow
truck, tho I realize you might well be curious.

While at a drugstore picking up some doilies I shared an elevator
with an older, tall, slow gentleman with long white hair that was thin-
ning on top…He had an ID badge and said he was a merchandiser.
This led to a pretty good line…Probably not Line of the Year, but still,
a pretty good line.

He asked how my day was going and I said pretty good, just mak-
ing sure the doilies get from here to there and he nodded slowly and
added his day was OK, adding:

I’m just looking for wayward product displays.
Aren’t we all?
(It should be noted sharing an elevator is not really in accordance
with company policy…In fact, it’s discouraged for what should be ob-
vious reasons…However, taking all factors into consideration and

September 2014 219

drawing on my considerable experience in matters of this sort, I de-
termined he wasn’t too much of a threat and, in fact, survived the ride
without either of us getting shot.)

Saturday September 20
The Wife and I went dancing last night…I am not making that

up!!!...
There is a local swing band that was playing at the art depot and

The Wife started making her usual noises about going earlier this
week and a good husband reads these signs and realizes it is in his
best interest to accede to her request.

I am, and this isn’t even subject to discussion, the absolute worst
dancer this species has produced…I have some zero aptitude for it
lacking, for example, coordination and rhythm, but other things, too,
like balance and a knowledge of where other dancers may be on the
floor.

The Wife, however, is a splendid dancer, moving with a grace and
ease – not to mention skill – I can’t even bother to dream about and
in the spirit of helpfulness from time to time she would advise me to
look at another couple, paying attention to their footwork.

This was funny, because I could not even comprehend what I was
looking at…You might as well’ve asked me to emulate Picasso’s paint
strokes…I might as well have been looking at Egyptian hieroglyphics
for all the good it did…Still tho, my enthusiasm was infectious and
The Wife enjoyed herself immensely when she wasn’t being bounced
off other dancers or the wall.

We made it a complete date night by going out to dinner, too, a
pretty nice local joint…Actually, it was the same place her son Allan
and I watched football at a couple of Sundays ago, so I had their medal
stand quality onion rings with my Rueben…The Wife, as she does from
time to time, went completely a la cart, rolling with the artichoke dip
and some broccoli and some corn bread.

The corn bread was quality, with melted cheese on top…I don’t
know why I had never thought of this before…It is complete and utter
genius.

220 The Diary of a Nobody

Sunday September 21
The Wife had a funny today…We were driving home after I picked

her up at work and were talking about our dance outing last night
and she noted there were many more women there than men, most of
whom did not get on the dance floor due to the supply and demand
numbers…I allowed I probably should’ve asked them to dance, on the
theory they would have enjoyed some time on the floor, even with as
lousy a dancer as me…The quote from The Wife:

You should have hitched up your pants and pretended to be Don
Knotts and told them your dance card was already filled up.

At the gym this morning I saw an exercise not only had I never
seen before, I had never even comprehended before…It was a woman,
incredibly lean, who was doing a pull-up…After the pull-up she let her
herself hang for a second before lifting her legs back up and touching
the bottom of her feet to the bar the chin up bar was attached to!!!...I
am not making that up!!!....I stared at her, I was watching from a ma-
chine behind her, for all ten of her reps…I felt like a complete slacker
sitting there on the leg extension machine.

Then there was a guy at the urinal in the locker room…Older guy
wearing gray cotton shorts…Gym shorts, of course, do not have a fly
so most guys, like me, will pull down the waistband to use the
can…This guy, and I had never seen this before, had merely lifted up
a pant leg.

Monday September 22
Greetings from the big city…I am not making that up…When I

woke up this morning I was not planning on spending the night in the
big city, but here I am in the same national, chain motel I was in last
week for the public television debate…I even just back from dinner at
the same restaurant that had all the single men in it last time…To-
night, tho, they mostly had normal people dining.

Anyway, I had an email from a guy who does an interview show
here, wanting to know if I could be in his studio Tuesday at 11am for
a taping…Well, no, not right now, if you want to know the truth…But
I talked to Kyle, one of the 16 people we seem to work for at the branch
and he said, sure, take Tuesday off because they are kind of amused

September 2014 221

one of their own is running for the United States Senate, so I told
Aaron, the host, sure I could be there.

The truck wasn’t fixed, either…The branch, tho, sent Dave the Me-
chanic up with another truck…This threw my day off, com-
pletely…The Wife and I had planned to spend the afternoon packing,
not that we’re moving or anything…Recall I am no longer talking about
our attempt to buy a house until it actually happens…However, with
our truck en route, the route didn’t get started until 1pm, so The Wife
and I got busy and spent the morning packing the kitchen and we got
95 percent of it done, too, which I personally was rather pleased with.

(As it was, Dave was able to get our usual truck running, and he
drove it back to the branch for repairs…Dave has also lost a lot, and
I mean a lot, of weight, easily 140 pounds he admitted to, but I
thought that figure low…He used to be really big).

This from Sunday morning, which for some reason did not get into
the Sunday entry:

So The Wife and I are sitting putzing around with morning coffee
when she gets a call from her friend Merrilee…She hadn’t heard from
Merilee in a while

Where are you?
I’m in labor!
I am not making that up, either!!!...Merlilee and The Wife aren’t
BFFs or anything, and I laughed when I overheard Merilee say she
was in labor…It was the first time I can recall ever being with someone
who received a phone call from someone in labor…I certainly have
never received a call from someone in labor before.
It wasn’t too long of a conversation…After a couple of minutes
Merilee cut it off:
The doctor just came in, so I kinda have to go.

Tuesday September 23
Well, just another routine day in the Sparrow house…Taped a TV

interview today and did the final inspection on the house...Barring
any unforeseen screw-ups – which I fully expect to happen based on
the fiasco buying a house has been – we close tomorrow.

222 The Diary of a Nobody

I was up early in the big city, went for a walk and was at the studio,
which is located right next to the football stadium, at 1015, a full 15
minutes early…Following instructions I entered through the loading
dock in the back, which was about as glamorous as it sounds, where
I was immediately commandeered by Davida, the make-up lady.

If everybody was as good as there job as Davida was at hers, we’d
have a perfect world…She even got rid of the dark area under my eyes,
so I was able to go without glasses and, needless to say, she took care
to ensure my mostly bald head didn’t go blinding anybody.

Davida also managed to drop some names…In perfectly routine
conversation, too…She allowed as to how she had been brought in to
“do Hillary” and had worked on a movie with Beau Bridges…I told her
perhaps one day she’ll be able to brag about having done Sparrow.

She also described each item as she applied, much like a somme-
lier tells you about your wine…Like when a sommelier addresses me,
I pretended I knew what she walking about.

The host, Aaron, and his producer Jana, had done their home-
work, having quotes from the Sparrow For US Senate site ready…This
led to a thoughtful and substantive discussion, and we were able to
discuss our economy, the death penalty, foreign policy, the Second
Amendment, government controlled economies and a couple of other
issues I forget…The only two issues we didn’t get to that I would not
have completely objected getting to were gay marriage and immigra-
tion.

Like the public TV debate with the other third party candidates, I
wasn’t nervous…I was able to completely ignore the cameras and it
was as if I was merely having a conversation with Aaron, which I was.

Boy, I scooted home immediately afterwards…I stopped by to see
The Wife at work, then headed to the cabin we are closing on tomorrow
for the final inspection…Jim the Realtor was there and together we
made sure the sellers had fixed the things they agreed to fix and that
everything worked…The Wife even texted to have me call her so she
could hear the toilet flush.

The sellers did a real nice job of fixing up the cabin…The outside
had been painted, rather nicely, too, and it was plain the inside had
been professionally cleaned…The big inspection objection item was

September 2014 223

replacing the heater, and they put a good one in…We turned it on to
make sure it worked and it put out about as much heat as you expect
at the fifth ring of hell, so we will be warm this winter.

Did I mention we close tomorrow???

Wednesday September 24
Boy, was the route a mess today, or what???!!!...Brian was late

and…
I’m kidding…We closed on the house today…It took a bit less than

an hour and good thing I refilled the ink on my nice signature pen
because The Wife and I spent virtually every second of that time sign-
ing our names…Since our loan is a VA loan, the government is in-
volved increasing the paperwork factor by five because – and this will
surprise you – some of the government forms were duplicates.

Jim the Realtor was there and so was Kathryn who did our loan
and Kendra, who runs the title company and hosted the festivities.

The only discrepancy was the seller’s broker hadn’t turned in the
keys yet, so Jim gave us the combo to the lock box and we headed
out, opened the lock box, and voila, there we were, in our own
house…This is the first time either of us has owned a home…The Wife
wept a bit and I’m pretty pleased, too…My friend Steve emailed and
called me a land baron.

Recall it was not the smoothest journey to this point…This was
the third house we were under contract to buy…The first one, in
spring 2013, got mucked up because the flood insurance was prohib-
itively expensive…Despite the fact we are in the mountains our flood
zone was the same as if we were buying a house on stilts in the Fiji
Islands…I wasn’t making the big bucks working for the Doily Delivery
Company then, and we had to withdraw our offer.

Then, as chronicled here, the first house we submitted an offer on
turned out to be a rathole and even the cabin we ended up buying
wasn’t all smooth sailing.

We are making pretty good progress on packing, too, and we
should be able to move this weekend…The Wife is going to pick up the
moving truck today and I will be home from the route a bit after noon
so we should be able to get lots of stuff loaded…The only downside is

224 The Diary of a Nobody

I neglected to take any time off from work for this evolution…The clos-
ing date changed a few times, of course, and I always ended up can-
celling the days off I had scheduled, so we are winging it.

And the route did run late!!!...Brian forgot the truck keys and had
to go back and get them.

Thursday September 25
The Wife is so anxious to move into our forever home she rented

the UHaul a day early and we got about 80 percent of our stuff
loaded…Adam, a 20ish young man living with his parents a couple of
cabins down helped us out, which at our advanced ages was a bigger
help than I like to admit.

I counted, since leaving the Navy shortly after the American Rev-
olution, this will be the 12th time I’ve moved…The Wife and I are both
presuming this will be the last time, too.

One of the lessons I’ve learned over the years is most things tend
to work out if you let them…Having Internet service and my treasured
phone line installed was one of those things.

Originally, it was scheduled to be installed today…This was our
original closing date, but everybody moved it to yesterday at my re-
quest, so The Wife could be at the new cabin when the install guy
showed up…Then I found out that while we could sign all the docu-
ments Wednesday, the actual money wasn’t going to be transferred
until today…So I called the Internet guys and spoke a nice, clueless
young man who appeared to have been on the job all of five
minutes…It took a bit more than 40 minutes, but he assured me he
got the appointment changed until Monday.

(It should be noted at closing the lender said the money had al-
ready been transferred.)

So Wednesday The Wife gets an automated call from the company
confirming our appointment for today…Well, hell…So I called and no
one was in to help me, so I did an online chat and there was someone
who meant well but they couldn’t help me either and advised me to
call first thing this morning.

September 2014 225

Which I did…They said the appointment had never been
changed….Fabulous…They were, however, able to narrow the time
down from sometime during daylight hours to early afternoon and
soon after I hung up the tech called The Wife and narrowed it down
even further to a time after the route so I could be there, too, and it
all worked out.

The only downside was the number they installed was NOT the
number I ordered…I found this tidbit out after the tech said the line
was working and I called my cell and another number popped up…The
tech’s mouth dropped when I asked him what the deal was and he
asked if I was kidding and I said no…I even showed him my cell and
compared the number that had just called me with the number I had
entered as a contact when I placed the order.

The tech went right to work, calling the home office, who said my
preferred number should be up and running tomorrow.

There is still some stuff to do today…Not everything is moved and
there is still some loose stuff to be packed and ol’ Sparrow is going to
scam is way out of all of it…There were so many changes to our closing
date and I was obliged to cancel every day off I had asked for that I
didn’t bother this time, we’d work around it.

Friday September 26
Whoever had one week in the When Will Route 20 Breakdown

Again pool wins, as ol’ Sparrow set what has to be some sort of Per-
sonal Best yesterday: 18 hours on the clock, 30 minutes actually
worked…This is really good, even for me.

It happened at 9:30, still early enough to ruin the entire god-
damned day…We had had a special stop at Doily Dispensing Machine
in town before heading out because they are remodeling the bank that
is inside a grocery store and had to move the DDM to its new, perma-
nent home…Regular readers of this crap might recall we had moved
it to its temporary home a few weeks ago…Anyway, I got there about
6:15am took the doilies out and it took about 20 minutes.

We get to Town A, as usual for Friday, an hour or so late and we’re
heading north out of town to start our route when some oil line or
pump or something breaks and we aren’t going forward anymore…We

226 The Diary of a Nobody

contact the branch, which is actually dealing with another truck
breakdown, and they dispatch their usual mobile repair guy in their
usual, everlasting hope it is “just a hose or something”.

It wasn’t…The mobile repair guy couldn’t fix it…So the branch
sent a tow truck…We were hooked up and heading back to Town A
about 3:45 or so – with Sparrow, as usual, lying in the bed in the back
of the cab – and the plan is to meet Route 21 when they get back to
Town A after finishing their route.

More waiting…We weren’t on the road until 7pm and I was back
at the DDM, ready for duty, at 9pm sharp.

All was chaos…The DDM was not ready to have cash put in
it…They were having problems getting the alarm up and running and
then getting it certified...Putting fresh doilies in the machine took all
of ten minutes…I was done at 1130pm and home, for the first night
in our new cabin, just after midnight…The Wife, exhausted after a
long day of moving, was long asleep and the cat, still annoyed at hav-
ing her home up and moved, did not greet me at the door…I had to go
looking for her, in fact, and finally found her, with my flashlight, under
the bed.

The house is, of course, still is complete disarray. I wrote this entry
Saturday morning, sitting on the floor, naked, because there wasn’t a
place to sit and we are not entirely sure where my clothes are.

Saturday September 27
Made my debut as Post Commander at the District 14 meeting this

morning…To make it as convenient as possible for Commander Spar-
row, it was held in the same town we just moved to…We live on the
edge of town and the Post is located on the other side of downtown,
just up from the high school, and what with Saturday morning rush
hour and everything, it took almost two (2) minutes to make the drive.

Ron is a member of Post 89…Recall at the state convention this
past June was had met and talked about us trying to buy a house in
town and he was pleased to hear we had finally made it to town…Ron
asked which house we bought and I told him on the corner of Maple
and Main streets and he nodded and pursed his lips and stroked his
chin before finally allowing he had no idea which street was Maple

September 2014 227

Street, tho it should be noted Ron has only lived in town 65 years or
so and the town now has over a thousand residents, so I cut him some
slack…The quote from Ron:

We never had them until the seventies…By then we knew where
everybody lived…There were only 500 people in town.

Talk at the meeting was mainly of hay farming…We have had a lot
of rain recently, enough the hay farmers were whining even more than
they usually do, with most only having cut half as much hay as they’ve
usually had.

After the meeting, and a really good lasagna lunch, Ron and
Stanko, my adjutant, were chatting when I waddled up and Ron said
he sure was looking forward to having me join Post 89 which got
Stanko moderately riled up and said Post 44 wasn’t going to let me
go…I told them they could bid on me.

I kinda enjoy being Commander, and I’m sure Post 89 has quality
leadership in place…I nicely deferred the matter till next year by tell-
ing both of them I’d like to finish my term before they start fighting
over me.

Then it was back to moving…On Friday, while I was sitting in a
broken truck for 17 hours, The Wife and some neighbors had done
Herculean work moving…Virtually everything was out of the UHaul,
except the couch and a couple of other big things, plus about two
dozen boxes, mainly books…I got home about 1230 or so and started
right in moving the boxes, then our former neighbor James showed
up as scheduled and we had the truck unloaded in fairly good time.

Then we went back to the old cabin where another neighbor, Bob-
bie, was cleaning it for us…Bobbie is a housekeeping supervisor at a
hotel and knows what she is doing and it didn’t cost us anything be-
cause earlier this year The Wife had done some babysitting for her and
they had merely traded services….We had paid James a hundred dol-
lars.

The landlord had brought by some paint and we touched up some
areas and that was that…We are all out.

228 The Diary of a Nobody

Sunday September 28
The Wife got the first gardening at the new cabin in today…Not too

much, just taking a hoe to a plot in the yard, but her own, permanent
garden is one of the things she’s been waiting a long time for and she
wanted to start right in despite the fact winter is right around the
corner.

The lawn will need work…Right now it is an eclectic mix of as-
sorted grasses, weeds and whole grains and the seller didn’t mow it
for a couple-three weeks before we took over, so it needs to be mowed,
too.

I spent the day getting the living room organized…My desk and
books will be housed here and right now we have more books than
bookcase…I don’t don’t know how this happened…I mean, we seemed
to have enough at the old place...Later this week I will look into buying
a proper desk and some bookcases…We are not completely broke and
can afford something that will last a long time.

I think I am still running for the United States Senate…This has
been a busy few days…I’ll have to check.

Monday September 29
You know, we more or less expected to do Friday’s route to-

day…But when I hadn’t heard from anybody by the time I went to bed
Sunday, I figured they were going to put it off till Tuesday.

The branch is lucky I am old and have to go to the can at 4am
every day…That’s when I saw the email from Kyle, one of the 16 or so
supervisors we have at the branch, informing us we were to meet
Route 21 in Town A today…There was also a text from Brain asking if
I had gotten Kyle’s text…If I didn’t have to go to the can every day I
would’ve slept right.

We also got our original truck back…It was even washed and it
appears someone cleaned up inside, too, which we are grateful for.

This screwed up our plan to get a new car, too…The Wife, tho, has
Thursday off and I’ll be off early, so we will do it then.

The new cabin is coming along, with The Wife making excellent
progress…All the boxes are out of the kitchen and we are able to find
most things now without having to dig for them…The Wife closed out

September 2014 229

matters at the rental cabin, too…She did the final walkthrough with
Reed and the place was spotless and we got our deposit money back.

I did ask Jim the Realtor where we could find out what the exact
boundaries of Fort Sparrow – as The Wife has taken to calling our
forever home – were...He said he would look into it because a survey
wasn’t required by anybody for our purchase.

Tuesday September 30
The weather is starting to change and there has been snow on the

pass heading out of town the past couple of days…It turns to rain
almost immediately as you start heading down, but the snow is stick-
ing to the trees and the roads are kind of slushy…It still isn’t snowing
in town yet, but it will and The Wife had brochures for both snow
blowers and lawn mowers on the kitchen table when I got home to-
night…We’re land barons now, and we will need to maintain Fort
Sparrow – as the wife is calling our new cabin – because no one is
going to do it for us.

The local paper, which has more or less ignored my candidacy un-
til now, invited me to a candidate’s forum they are hosting on the
14th…I don’t know if the big boys are going to be there or not…What’s
funny is I had actually heard about the forum last week from Tina,
who is my vice-commander at the Post and doubles as the chairman
of the county Republican Party…I wrote the editor today asking if I
could come and she said sure, they wanted to invite all third party
candidates that live in the county…She also apologized for not inviting
me originally, however the fact I lived in the county was “under the
radar”…How a small town newspaper editor does not know someone
in her coverage area is running for the United States Senate, especially
since I emailed the paper every hour on the hour after my nomination,
is not immediately clear…I didn’t tell her that and graciously accepted
the invitation.

I am going to go a couple of consignment shops tomorrow and look
for some desks for the house.



October 2014

Wednesday October 1
Busy day today…We knocked off work about 1215 or so, a great

time, and I went to a local consignment shop to look for some stuff for
Fort Sparrow…I bought a desk for myself and a chair to go with it and,
get this, I bought a desk for The Wife, too…It is an older number that
rests against a wall and the desk actually folds out and there are
drawers and cubbyholes and The Wife actually went and scoped it out
during her lunch break cause it is in the same shopping center as her
work and she said she loved it, so more bonus points for ol’ Sparrow…I
have really been raking them lately.

I hate car dealers!!!…They are always trying to sell me more car
than I want to buy…I spent most of the rest of the afternoon yapping
with dealers in the big city because The Wife and I are headed there
tomorrow to buy a car, but nothing is firm right now.

Look, guys, I know what I want, and I know what I want to spend
so don’t try to sell me something I don’t want at a price I can afford
but don’t want to spend…As it is, they are having sufficient difficulty
selling me what I do want…Something will work out, though…I am
preapproved for a loan so I don’t have to deal with dealer financing
and I am motivated, too, because we really do need a second car.

As if there isn’t enough going on in the life of ol Sparrow, my fave
baseball team made the playoffs…The Royals haven’t been in the
playoffs since 1985…I was a kid serving on a submarine and they won
the World Series that year and they won their opening game last night,
an extra inning thriller.

Editor’s Note: Sparrow was very busy Thursday and Friday, and
too exhausted to write. The Diary resumes Saturday.

Saturday October 4
The exhausting two weeks are over.

232 The Diary of a Nobody

Not content with buying a house, The Wife and I went to the big
city Thursday and bought a car…Recall we had been getting by with
one car since I hit a deer last December…It actually worked out pretty
well while living in town, but now that we’ve moved 20 miles west, we
need two cars.

What’s funny is there remains a difference between what I want to
spend on a car and what I can afford…I have never bought more car
than I need, and what we ended up spending was about half what the
bank had preapproved us for.

We didn’t get home until after midnight Friday morning and Fri-
day’s are, of course, long days at the Doily Delivery Company, and ol’
Sparrow got less than four hours sleep…This is rare…I tend to get my
rest, and I was exhausted all day Friday…Fortunately I didn’t have to
drive and while the route is long on Fridays, most of the day is spent
long-haul driving and I actually got some nappsies in from time to
time.

My team is up two games to nothing in the baseball playoffs!!!...I
am not making that up…They’ve won all their games in extra innings,
too, the first time anyone has won three straight extra inning playoff
games in the history of the world…One more win and they advance to
the next round.

Settling in at Fort Sparrow is progressing…The Wife has the
kitchen almost all done and I made good progress on the living
room/office today…The number of boxes remaining in the living room
is down to just a couple-three and the big table I bought for my desk
is nicely situated in a corner.

The only flaw in the day were the bookcases…One, which we
brought from the old cabin, needed some emergency field repairs be-
cause the original shelf supports were lost and the replacements I
bought were too big for the holes.

In a huff I was ready to say “to hell with it” and put the house back
on the market, but with the help of a couple of screwdrivers – one
flathead and the other Phillips head – I made the holes big enough for
the new supports…You would think these things would be standard-
ized.

October 2014 233

Then the bookcase I bought broke during assembly…This wasn’t
too big a deal; it wasn’t all that big and we would’ve needed another
one, so tomorrow I will go looking for another one.

The best part of living in a small town is I went to the store for
some dryer sheets and made it back in less than ten minutes…There
is a small market on the other side of town that is a two-minute drive
away and the only reason I wasn’t back in six minutes was I spent
some time chatting with the checker.

In town this would’ve taken 45 minutes, minimum, and probably
close to an hour…The closest market was on the other side of town,
about eight miles away…It was a half hour round trip…The Wife and
I are glad to be out of the rat race of living in a metropolis with 12
thousand people.

Sunday October 5
Boy, today wasn’t an official General Holiday, but I didn’t do too

much, either…I did do some more unpacking, but we really can’t do
too much until we get some more bookcases and I didn’t leave the
house till a quarter after three or so and that was only to go to the
market…We really didn’t need anything I bought at the market – some
coffee and some toothpaste – but I was in the mood to go to my local,
small town market and I’m a homeowner now, so good luck stopping
me.

Monday October 6
Got off a pretty good line today, and it might well be a contender

for Line of the Year.
You should know a couple of things to truly appreciate the line.

First, our new cabin is in a small town, about 12 hundred people,
mainly a farm and ranch town, tho a lot of people do work at the
nearby power plant…I am the only employee of the Doily Delivery
Company in town.

Second, every year at the fairgrounds it hosts an even called the
Redneck Olympics, though, get this, the real Olympics, of the five
rings and whatnot, got snitty and made them change it…I think it’s
now called the RedNex Games or something like that.

234 The Diary of a Nobody

Anyway, The Wife had spent some time at the town hall today pay-
ing the water bill – which included some quality time chatting with
our neighbors – and this afternoon she wonders aloud if redneck is
one word or two…After the classic Sparrow pause I reach for my phone
and say:

I’ll call city hall…
It got some big laughs…Not good laughs, not a chuckle, but gen-
uine big laughs, and it must be considered a contender for Line of the
Year honors.

Tuesday October 7
Bought a bookcase today…Online, because we were unable to find

one here…It’s tall and wide and dark wood-ish and it should be the
last one we need for a while because we will now have more bookcase
than books.

In a palace coup, Bonser is out as Sparrow for Senate campaign
manager, replaced by his nine-year-old rug rat Matt…I gave my Matt
Twitter and Facebook passwords – not to mention a valid credit card
number – and before anyone needed a deodorant he had ads up on
both sites, and was Tweeting and posting some of my favorite lines,
like “We cannot have a peaceful world without a peaceful America”
and “A nation conceived in liberty must extend every liberty to every
citizen”.

He also has ads on Facebook targeting voters under 30 and we are
working on getting an ad in Spanish up, too.

Wednesday October 8
Had a funny incident at the local market today…I was at the

checkout…I had a cart because I had planned on needing one, but I
ended up only getting a couple of things: some ground beef and some
bread.

I took the stuff out of the cart and looked at the guy behind me, a
working man about my age with some chips and a six-pack – and no
cart…I shrugged.

October 2014 235

Really, I planned on buying more things than this…
The guy laughed…As I said this as I put my two items on the coun-
ter so the checker, a nice older lady who looks like everyone’s grand-
mother, could check me out…She laughed, too, and said she had half
a mind to send me back for more items…She looked my ground beef
and bread purchase over with feigned disdain.
You need, goodness, cheese and onions and tomatoes and – buns!
you don’t have buns! – and chips…Something to drink, too.
This was pretty funny and I started laughing, then I smiled at the
lady.
Look, ma’am, I do the jokes here…
I do, too!!!...It’s part of my job…Hamburger and bread is not a suf-
ficient dinner.
Then the guy chimes in:
You better listen to her, sir.
As I paid for my stuff the lady bagged them up…I made a big show
of hitching up my pants and nodding significantly:
I’ll be taking these out myself…
I showed the lady a palm.
No need for the cart on this one…
Bonser’s rug rat is turning into the slave driver Sparrow for US
Senate needs…He had do a questionnaire today that we put on the
website and linked to it on a dozen or so Tweets…We also linked to a
short blurb urging everyone to accept the challenge, along with me, of
making our government right.

Thursday October 9
Presided over my second meeting of the Post tonight…As noted,

we are a pretty low key post and my main value seems to be in showing
up and keeping meetings to less than an hour-and-a-half…I actually
think 90 minutes is a bit long, however the guys seem to expect, tho
I’ve noticed over the couple-three years I’ve been here they tend to lose
interest at the 91 minute mark, so I am careful not to go over.

236 The Diary of a Nobody

Stanko and I talked about the District meeting we went too which
the guys seem to like to hear about, probably because us going means
they don’t have to go.

Van reported on his efforts at organizing our Veteran’s Day ap-
pearances at a couple local schools and the retirement home…A cou-
ple of years ago I wore my uniform, my old Navy dress blues – with
accompanying photographic evidence – but I don’t think I will wear
them this year, mainly because the dress blue jumper looks kinda
silly on someone once they get out of their 20’s.

We also came into an extra $1,500 and voted to spend them on
some veteran grave markers at the cemetery…The money was unex-
pected…A boat was donated to the post with instructions that we were
to sell it and use the proceeds to do something good for veterans.

Well, OK…None of us knew anything about boats, so Stanko put
an up somewhere and someone offered him $1,500 and he took
it…The grave markers will go flush in the ground and they come with
a stand you can stick a flag in…The markers will be helpful because
right now only a couple of people know where the veterans are buried
in the cemetery and if they die soon we are all screwed.

We also had a request from the Girl Scouts to retire some old
American flags they have lying around…Stanko suggested we could
either do it at his ranch with a hundred or so other flags he has laying
around or we could do it at one of their meetings…I suggest doing it
at one of their meetings would be something they would not likely
forget, because we have a formal ceremony for retiring flags that in-
volves a lot of solemn words and saluting and whatnot before we ac-
tually burn the flags.

(For the uninitiated, national flags are burned and not merely
thrown out with the trash…We get requests to pick up an old flag from
time to time, too.)

There were some more things and I wrapped up it all up in 88
minutes, earning my post meeting brewskie.

Brian and I have swapped duties on Wednesday and Thursday…I
used to deliver on Wednesdays and drive on Thursday, but we
switched…This was at Brian’s request and involves a girl…More de-
tails later.

October 2014 237

What’s funny is people noticed, with more than a couple of people
commenting on it.

Friday October 10
The long sleeve shirt made its debut on the doily route today…It’s

still in the 60s during the day and not really necessary, but it’s the
second week in October and it should be cool enough for a long sleeve
shirt, dammit, so I wore it anyway.

The route was longer than usual…The pass was closed heading
out of town because heading out of town when a drunk lady drove her
car into a semi…As tends to happen, the semi won and the lady died
and her car blew up…Evidently people had been the state patrol about
her for a while and they had gotten close enough to her a trooper was
on the scene within a minute of the crash.

Ran into a cattle drive on the route, too…Fairly early on, and there
were enough so we were held for about ten minutes…It was mostly
uneventful, but every now and then you’d run into a cow who would
try to go the other way or who didn’t want to move at all.

Made The Wife very happy today…This is the first home purchase
for both of us and when we closed my name was the only one on the
deed because the loan was in my name…Well, it was important to
both of us both our names be on the title, so at closing I signed a
paper transferring ownership from Sparrow to Mr and Mrs Spar-
row…It was notarized and the title folks then sent it to the country
clerk, who threw some pixie dust on it or something and sent it back
to us, making both Sparrows home owners.

The Wife wept for a bit, had me make a copy of the deed, which I
put on the refrigerator…The original is still in the copier…I’ll take it
out today.

Saturday October 11
The Wife and I went to a bonfire last night at the home of one of

her co-workers…This resulted in no small amount of hilarity because
the address on the flier was, hilariously, wrong…Connie did not live
on county road 11, she lived on country road 44.

238 The Diary of a Nobody

There is a country road 11…It is neither near where we live nor is
it anywhere near country road 44 which is just down the highway
from us.

County road 11 was hard to find…I couldn’t find it on a regular
map, nor could I find it online so I called the sheriff…I am not making
that up!!!...This is a pretty low key county with not a whole lot of crime,
so it was not unreasonable to believe the dispatchers wouldn’t have
all that much going on.

The dispatcher had trouble finding it of all things…Turns out
country road 11 is well south of here, a rather short, probably un-
paved, road shooting out from county road 17.

This was not even close to where The Wife had been told the bon-
fire would be held at and she was, officially, Displeased with this. At
first she tried to blame me, but I pointed out I had, as instructed,
actually found County Road 11 which didn’t please her as much I
thought it should have. She made some phone calls and found out
Troy had gotten his fours and his ones confused when he made the
flier and we were about a half-hour late to the bonfire.

I had not roasted a hot dog over an open fire since summer camp
as a boy and I had never – and never means not once – roasted a
croissant over an open fire…I am not making that up!!!...The guy sit-
ting next to me, whose name I forget, was toasting them left and right
and invited me to try…He had a long stick with some foil wrapped
around the end, wrapped some dough around the foil and handed me
the stick, along with directions not to get it too close to the fire.

It broke up pretty early, too…I went to bed to do some reading but
The Wife had made herself a smore with a marshmallow the size of an
oil filter and she still had some energy, so she putzed around the
kitchen and probably would’ve mowed the lawn had we had owned a
lawn mower.

Sunday October 12
Made some big points today…Yesterday I had bought a griddle for

our new house…Our old griddle was thrown before we moved because
it was getting old and was a piece of crap…I also made a lot of noises
about making Sunday morning hotcakes, especially since The Wife

October 2014 239

had the day off and even I even bought some thick cut bacon…This
would result in significant bonus points for ol’ Sparrow.

Well, regular readers of this crap know I have almost zero cooking
skills and The Wife has been known to take my offers to make Sunday
breakfast more as a threat than anything and she hadn’t even finished
her second cup of coffee before she was making breakfast and not
even allowing me to as much as look in her kitchen…Our new griddle
performed admirably.

The best part is, even tho she made breakfast, I still get bonus
points!!!...It’s in the bylaws or something…I made the initial offer, so
I get the bonus points.

This came after sleeping in…I was up a bit after 8am, rather late
for me, and The Wife did not favor us with her presence until 8:30 or
so.

I don’t if I’ve mentioned this, but the hot water heater in our new
cabin produces really hot water…It was so hot that when The Wife
drew herself a bath and didn’t add sufficient cold water she was
obliged to wait a bit before she could bathe…She wondered aloud if
maybe adding some cold water wouldn’t help speed the process up.

You would need an ice age to cool it down…
A pretty good line, if you ask me…Maybe not Line of the Year, but
still pretty good.
As it was, the windows in the living room even steamed up from
the hot bath water.

Monday October 13
We think the cat has finally found a permanent place to sleep in

our new cabin.
Originally I had put her bed, which The Wife made, on my desk,

in the hopes she would join me there from time to time, but it never
caught on with her, so I put the bed on top of a small bookcase we
have in the bedroom – which actually holds toilet paper and some
other sundry items – but she didn’t really like that, either.

Then a couple-three days ago The Wife put an overnight bag on
top of the bookcase while she was unpacking and the cat was napping
on top of the bag before you either of us knew what happened...We