The Diary of a Nobody 2013/2014

40 The Diary of a Nobody

I was coming home from my ballgames, on a lonely two-lane state
highway…A car was coming in the other direction so I shut off my
brights and then I saw the shadow of a deer trotting across in front of
the oncoming car so I slow down and I miss, barely, the first deer but
there was one right behind it…

The options weren’t great: I could swerve to the right and hit the
first deer, and maybe run off the road or I could swerve left and hit
the oncoming car or I could take my chances and go straight.

I got off easy…I did not hit the deer head on which, even at a re-
duced speed, would’ve caused significant damage…The deer nicked
my front quarter panel and his head hit my side of the windshield
squarely, and the side mirror is missing…I was not hurt and except
for having to lean to the right to see, was able to drive home, which
was a blessing considering I was out of cell range and it was cold out.

I felt terrible…The deer had to have been significantly injured…I
hope not…I hope she was able to trot way, but I doubt it…She might
have been dead, or worse…I’m not an expert in the matter, but a quick
death probably would’ve been better than lying in agony.

The games weren’t that great…Especially the second game…One
team, from down the road a bit, was decimated by graduation and the
other is a rather new private school from down south that obviously
emphasizes academics because their very best player wasn’t all that
good.

Before the game Elvis and I were in the locker room changing and
he was telling me about his knees…Elvis has been officiating high
school sports for an awfully long time and played sports for long time,
too, and his knees aren’t as sturdy as they used to be.

Anyway, Elvis was yapping about an injury to his left knee he had
a couple-three years ago…It involved his kneecap not being where it
should be and a nurse finding it somewhere up his thigh and I
couldn’t take it…I begged Elvis to stop talking about this because it
was, frankly, making me a tad squeamish…I don’t even like writing
about this right now, so I am going to stop.

There are a pair of old timers that go to every game at this high
school…They sit in the front row near half court and they’re fun to

December 2013 41

chat with…They both grew up in that town, went to school there, mar-
ried there, worked there and now they’re retired there…One drove the
school bus for ages and another actually officiated for a long time,
too…You run into this from time to time up here, too…I always find
this interesting and I gotta admit I’m a tad envious because I have
zero roots anywhere.

And every game means every game, even tournament games that
don’t involve the home school…I don’t know their names, tho.

Turns out I got my pic in Friday’s paper…The Wife pointed it out
to me and she did a great job because it’s not as if the pic part of a
feature on Sparrow…It’s from Thursday’s night game, of a basketball
player driving the lane and I’m in the background and most of my face
was cut out but The Wife said she noticed me immediately…I looked
and decided she was right, it was me…The guy was not short enough
to be Brett and not trim enough to be Chris, so that sorta narrowed it
down…Plus, someone who knew what to look for would notice the ref
was going commando and not wearing a lanyard for his whistle…Both
Brett and Chris use a lanyard that wraps around the neck, which I
don’t like at all and I haven’t used a lanyard for my whistle in years.

December 15
Anytime you do six games in three days one is going to blow, one

is going to be really good and the rest are going to be average…The
really good game was Game 2 yesterday…Two well-matched teams in
a game that was well played and close and demanded a high level of
officiating…Ryan, who’s the assigner out here, Jim – also from out of
town – and myself delivered a really well officiated game.

There was a snafu, though with scorebook…At halftime an assis-
tant coach for Team A pointed out the running score on his iPad app
was different than the tally on the scoreboard…Not surprisingly, his
score had Team A winning by four points while the scoreboard had
Team B winning by one point…Ryan was the referee and is responsi-
ble for admin matters like this so he has both scorebooks compare
their figures and it turns out they have something completely different
– Team B winning by four.

42 The Diary of a Nobody

It was kinda funny, standing there at halftime with three different
scores…Since both scorebooks had the same score that is what we
rolled with…There really was nothing else we could do.

In the locker room before the game I told the guys about me hitting
the deer…Rick asked if it was a doe or a buck…Hell, I don’t know…I’m
not a game warden…I was barely able to differentiate it from, say, an
elephant… Rick made it real easy, though, by asking if it had horns
or didn’t have horns.

Since the deer’s head hit the windshield directly in front of me I
could answer that…It didn’t have horns, I said….Rick nodded and
said it was a doe…Then Brett asked if it had a red nose…There was
some general laughter while I stroked my chin and gave the question
the consideration it deserved…After some thought I reported no, the
deer did not have a red nose….This excited the guys.

Rick: Good, we’re going to have Christmas.
Brett: Sparrow, you saved Christmas. Good job.
Rick, who has lived up here for ten years or so estimated he has
hit a half-dozen animals or so on the road over the years.
The post’s Christmas party was last night…Had a great turnout,
too, maybe 60 people or so…They had presents for everybody and I
came away with a pair of work gloves…They will come in handy on the
route…They’re not leather, like my current gloves, so who knows how
they’ll stand up to the rigors of day in, day out doily delivering, but
they are insulated so they will probably be a tad warmer…The Wife
came away with a rather inexpensive cosmetic set…She really wanted
the three pack of warm socks, but someone else got them first…This
was one of those deals where you could take someone else’s present,
but neither of us like doing that.
Stanko asked me if I was interested in being Commander of our
Legion post…I said sure...Dave’s term ends this summer and pretty
much everybody who wants to be commander has already been com-
mander.

December 16
The Wife is making our Christmas presents this year…We don’t

give too many presents, and I don’t give out any at all, but what we

December 2013 43

are issuing was all made Sunday…Those fortunate enough to receive
a present from us will be favored with – get this – a jar of homemade
laundry soap!

I am not making that up…To ensure that nobody ever again likes
us or invites us to anything more exciting than a wake we are giving
out homemade laundry detergent…The Wife made it this afternoon
and it really isn’t all that hard, though it is time consuming…We’ve
been using homemade laundry soap since summer…It’s quality stuff,
too, leaving our clothes as clean as the store bought stuff…I cannot
tell the difference, and as picky as I am about my officiating uniforms
I would notice in a heartbeat.

December 17
I think I am going to resign as the instructional guy for the bas-

ketball refs association…We met tonight and I spent most of the time
listening as more experiences officials took what I started with and
ran with it…I would get angry for them hijacking my meeting, but they
know what they are talking about and I’m standing back there taking
notes because I don’t know half this stuff even though I should cause
I’m the rules and instructional guy…I did step in and end it, tho, be-
cause they are fairly long winded and could’ve gone on all night and
some of us have to work…I talked it over with Elvis, the area director,
and he was supportive, saying I am doing a great job and what I am
doing is better than they’ve generally had in the past, which is more
or less true.

Brian had some gossip from the branch…Recall I took a day off
Friday, so they sent a driver up from the big city…He said Fred the
trainer, who trained both of us, was reassigned as a driver after the
jerks in corporate whined about Fred using outdated training materi-
als…I thought this was funny because I liked Fred’s training sessions,
although we did take a lot of breaks so Fred could go smoke…I told
this to The Wife and my line about that explaining the module on
horse and buggy procedures was found funny.

Last year The Wife and I started a new tradition by barbecuing on
the first day of winter…Rather originally, if you ask me, we dubbed it
the Winter Solstice Barbecue…This year’s is scheduled for Saturday,

44 The Diary of a Nobody

although we have decided to outsource it to the pizza joint in the small
down The Wife work’s in…Saturday will be prime rib night, of course,
which The Wife is on record as craving, though I will splurge with their
world champion Stromboli because I can.

December 18
Fought the post office battle today…For The Wife…She worked

very hard making and packing the homemade laundry soap we are
sending out, so I happily mailed them today…It wasn’t a complete
madhouse, but it was pretty packed…Shipping cost more than thirty
bucks, and was considerably more expensive than the soap we are
sending out.

Some of you are no doubt wondering how the new gloves I got at
the Post Christmas party are holding out…Recall they’re really warm,
but they are material and not leather like my current ones, so who
knows how they’ll last on the doily route…They both from the same
leading national glove maker.

I am actually using both…The new ones are toasty warm, so I wear
them first thing in the morning and while driving, at least until the
truck heats up…Today while delivering doilies, however, I went with
the leather ones…The truck gets really dirty and the gloves take a
beating, too, so I think I will keep them both handy.

December 19
I made some eggs recently for The Wife…She had to be pretty hun-

gry to ask me to make eggs for her because, as noted, I only cook eggs
two ways: scrambled and sunny side up…I am so lame at this I forgot
to season them until they were almost done, instead of immediately
after entry into the pan.

Compounding this is my humiliating inability to crack eggs with
one hand…I have tried to do this for years…Without success…Usually
I’ll bang the egg so hard against the side of the pan the egg virtually
disintegrates or I will squeeze it so hard during the cracking process
it gets all over my hand or, as likely as not, all over the floor.

So I labor away with two hands.

December 2013 45

December 20
A rather low key day on the route…The roads were pretty icy at

the start when we drove to meet another route to pick the day’s doilies
and we left them about 45 minutes behind schedule, but we were
more or less on schedule the rest of the way and we got home only
about 45 minutes later than usual.

Sometimes driving on the snow can be confusing…The road out of
town had been plowed but it was kinda confusing as to where the lines
were…The road has rumble strips in the center and on the sides, but
this actually confused Brian somewhat cause somehow he thought
the center rumble strip was the one on the right edge of our lane and
he was driving right down the middle of a two-lane highway when he
thought he was driving at the right edge of our lane.

“Where’d the hell they plow, the right shoulder? I feel like I’m driv-
ing in the center!”

“Uh, we are partner…We’re driving in the middle right now.” I
said…We were the only ones on the road at that hour and it took Brian
took a second to collect his bearings before realizing we were, in fact,
driving right down Broadway.

Ran into some friends of The Wife at a delivery…The guy I see from
time to time, but his girlfriend I hadn’t seen for ages and she gets up
and wants a hug cause Sparrow is internationally renowned for giving
great hugs, but I had to show her a palm because I can’t give hugs on
the route…I highly doubt she was a threat to take my gun and hit me
over the head with it, but you never know…She took it well, but she
did say I owe her a hug.

I generally enjoy Christmas music, however I prefer the sacred
Christmas carols I grew up with and not those barking dogs or rock-
ing around the Christmas tree and today I was sentenced to several
stirring renditions of that Mommy kissing Santa Claus tripe which,
despite the fact I really didn’t want it, stayed in my head for most of
the day.

December 21
Preparations for our visitors continue…Recall I’ve reported that

Her Majesty, The Wife’s Daughter will be visiting next week…She is

46 The Diary of a Nobody

serving country in our Navy and original plans were for her to bring
two shipmates with her but one shipmate evidently fell out of favor
with Her Majesty so only one is making the trip but The Wife suspects
Her Majesty might be bringing her new boyfriend, too.

Anyway, while I was reffing a couple of basketball games today The
Wife hired the neighbor to help her clean…They worked hard, too be-
cause the cabin looks wonderful…So wonderful, in fact, I’m afraid to
walk anywhere.

I am so useless cleaning it isn;’t even funny…I help out and clean
the kitchen and the stove and I think I do a good job and there’s still
ten minutes of follow-up work needed…But with me out of the way
unable to muck things up everything looks great.

My games were fairly routine…They were over in the next county
against a team that drove five (5) hours to get there…Rick and I started
things off with the girls JV game…Video of this game is not being sent
to the basketball commissioner for Game of the Year honors…But
Rick and I gave it league game hustle the whole way, which is one of
the nice things about officiating…It would’ve been easy to sluff off and
not run as hard in the second half, but we were having none of
that…There are a couple of reasons for this…One, we take pride in
our work and two, a game can go from zero to sixty just like that and
trouble is less likely to happen if we’re still on the ball.

It was Chris and John and I in the girls varsity game…This started
out to be a route, but the home team lost interest in the second half
while the visitors still played and in the fourth quarter we looked up
and it was a seven point game…There was a timeout with about a
minute left and Chris comes up to me.

“Man, nobody’s yelling at us. They always yell at us in college
ball.”…I laughed…He was right, tho…The coaches were more or less
keeping quiet and despite the game having the usual amount of close
calls nobody in the stands was saying word one...I told Chris it was
because we were doing such a good job and presented such an air of
authority that people presume we knew what we were doing.

It probably wasn’t too far off the mark…One thing I learned early
on in this trade was looking the part and hustling was, literally, half
the battle.

December 2013 47

The athletic director at the high school really knows how to treat
officials…I was the first one there and he personally escorted me to
our changing room where my check, for the correct amount including
mileage, was waiting for me, as was the tax paperwork I was required
to fill out, and the AD had pizza and sandwiches in the locker room,
too.

The only problem is pizza is the absolute worst thing you can have
between games, but I had a slice and a sandwich after my final game.

December 22
The Wife and I had our second annual Winter Solstice Barbecue

(WSBBQ) last night...The first one was last year and it was cold and
snowing but that didn’t stop us from barbecuing burgers…It was so
much fun we immediately proclaimed it an official Sparrow Family
Tradition.

As noted a few days ago, we were – due to a variety of factors –
considering outsourcing this year’s WSBBQ to the pizza joint down
the road...It’s really, really good and my respect for official Sparrow
Family Traditions is exceeded only by my love of their Stromboli. ..The
only down side it as an awful lot of food and, as usual, I didn’t sleep
too well and I’ll probably be farting all day, but what the hell.

I love our cat…Before I made lunch I gave her a can of yum-
mies…She always has dry food available and from time to time we
supplement that with a moist, tasty treat…I feed her first on the the-
ory that if she has yummies she’ll leave my meal alone but that is
wishful thinking…She is so good at knowing when a human is about
to produce food I don’t even need to open anything anymore, I merely
need to stand in the kitchen and think about making something be-
fore the cat swings into action.

December 23
A very relaxing Sunday, though we were both so stuffed from Sat-

urday’s Winter Solstice Barbecue that we didn’t bother with Sunday
morning hotcakes and had some hot cereal instead.

48 The Diary of a Nobody

December 24
Yesterday on the route I both drove and delivered doilies!!!...I am

not making that up…Brian said he was really sick and was just a few
hours out of the emergency room and asked if he could drive because
I usually drive on Mondays…Sure, I said…It doesn’t really matter.

Then we’re actually on the route and it is plain Brian is struggling
so I offer to drive and he takes me up on it, which shows he really is
sick because Brian is a good worker and not a malingerer…So I both
drive and deliver, which wasn’t that hard and I made Brian do the
paperwork and get my doily bag ready for the next stop besides.

Brian is taking a sick day today, too, so I will pick up a partner
when I meet the route from the branch…When I emailed our paper-
work in to the 17 people we report to at the branch I added:

Brian: enjoy your powder day Tuesday! – Just kidding guys!
I know things aren’t funny if you have to explain them, but we had
a lot of snow this past weekend and the mountain is in primo condi-
tion, so in that context the above line is funny…Trust me.
Bonser emailed. He and the rug rat are off enjoying the holiday
someplace warm…He said he’d be back after the new year.

December 25
Despite the fact a lot of places closed early and we had about a

third of the stops, the route yesterday was the longest yet, a full 16-
hours…Fortunately I’ve read Roots and no longer complain about an-
ything since I’m not a slave and nobody makes me do this job, but if I
were in a complaining mode I’d be whining like a four-year-old.

I didn’t get home till after 10:30pm, which would’ve been depress-
ing if I were in a complaining mode, but since I’ve never been chained
to a plank in the hold of a ship wallowing in my own filth on my way
to a new career as a slave I am not complaining about it.

Still, tho, I thought Christmas Eve dinner for ol’ Sparrow was go-
ing to be a convenience store club sandwich in a parking lot, but when
I got home The Wife had a prime rib dinner waiting for me.

I am not making that up! I thought The Wife was working late, but
she got off early and made it to a gathering we had been invited to
which featured prime rib and Yorkshire pudding, among other tasty

December 2013 49

treats…The Wife and some friends insisted a plate be made for
me…Hubba hubba…Had I been in a complaining mood – and I wasn’t,
of course – this would’ve wiped right out…The Wife actually fried up
the prime rib into a tasty rib eye and the Yorkshire pudding might well
have been made by providence in celebration of His son’s birth it was
that good….Offhand, I’m proclaiming it Christmas Eve Dinner of the
Year, but we’ll have to wait till the end of the year for a final declara-
tion.

December 26
Something funny happened today.
I’m at the hospital picking up our friend Michelle, who’d had some

surgery on her hand done…Everything goes smoothly and I take her
to a nearby pharmacy so she can get her medicine…We’re sitting on a
bench chatting pleasantly and my phone rings…It’s Roberta, the
nurse from the hospital who had handled Michelle’s discharge.

“Are you guys still in the area?” she asked.
I almost laughed. This can’t be good, I thought. What’d they do,

leave the IV in her?
“Uh, yeah,” I said, adding we were nearby getting her prescription

filled.
“Good. Come back. We left the IV in her.”
I am not making that up!
“You sure?”
Roberta made a sound indicating she was sure.
“Here, we’ll look,” I said. I told Michelle what was happening and

she dutifully took off her jacket and there it was, on her left arm, a
needle and whatever the plastic tube that connects to the needle is
called.

“Yipper,” I said. “It’s still there.”
“Yes,” Roberta said. “Come on by. Use the circle driveway. I’ll
come out and do it there.
I had some funny lines. Leading off was one about how this was
my first field IV removal. It went from there. I congratulated Roberta
on at least remembering to disconnect the drip from the IV tube, then
asked if there was anything else in there they needed to get out as

50 The Diary of a Nobody

long as we were in the area and topped it off with inquiring how she
knew they had left it inside her, did they need it for someone else?

December 27
Another 16-hour day, or second this week!...One is rare, but Tues-

day – a long day to start out with – was Christmas Eve and most places
closed after we go there, so all that had to be done Friday…Not only
that, we were running late…One Brian overslept so while yours truly
reported for duty at the regular time, we didn’t hit the road till over an
hour later than normal…Plus, we were dispatched to a very rural
small town for a very special doily delivery, which added another hour,
hour-fifteen to the route.

I drove, at Brian’s request, and was strong up until the last hour
or so, when the mind started to hallucinate, but we had good weather
and good roads and made it home safely.

Her Majesty – The Wife’s daughter – and her shipmate Faith, were
there when I got home. They are both serving our nation on an aircraft
carrier. The dog was ecstatic at seeing her original owner again,
though the cat is, as usual, taking a wait-and-see attitude and she
was suspicious enough about what the hell was going in to sleep with
me part of the night.

December 28
While The Wife and the girls frolicked in the snow tonight, I found

myself as part of a color guard at a rather fancy deal in the ballroom
at a nice hotel.

You know, 9/11 was, of course, a great tragedy, but us vets have
been treated like saints ever since…Not only were we invited to the
dinner – and allowed to listen to the speaker – but we were also favored
with access to the VIP reception…This was nice…It featured an Open
Bar and I am not much of a drinker but Open Bar, former diesel boat
sailor???...Good gravy.

Champagne is my drink of choice, especially when it’s
free…Hubba hubba…I couldn’t drink too much because I wanted to
present our nation’s colors with the dignity they deserved, of course,
but I did have enough so that presenting our nation’s colors was a bit

December 2013 51

more pleasurable than it usually is…The VIP reception had a cheese
bar, too…It wasn’t Cheese Spread of the Year, but it wasn’t completely
without merit.

Stanko again talked to me about running for commander of the
post…I told him I was open to it…The election is in June, which gives
me time to consolidate my base, though since it is likely no one else
will want the job, that shouldn’t be too difficult.

December 29
The girls were out running around this morning, so I was on my

own for breakfast...I still revert to old bachelor techniques in this sit-
uation…First off is to not work too hard…Second, Sparrow wants to
use as few implements as possible…I decided on frying up some left-
over ham from Christmas and scrambling some eggs…I fried the ham
and scrambled the eggs in the same pan, which is, really, what makes
me a complete maniac…To save the thirty seconds it would’ve taken
to wash the bowl, I cracked the eggs in the pan and then stirred them
up…Since the pan was, of course, hot from frying ham, I had to act
quickly.

December 30
So I get a call from a guy at the insurance company asking me

where I’m getting my car fixed…Recall I hit a deer a while back…I told
him and he said that was interesting because he had just talked to
them and they didn’t know anything about my car…This would ex-
plain why my car hasn’t been fixed yet…I said the car was delivered
there last Monday…He said he would do some more investigating and
call me if there is a problem…I didn’t hear from him, but I’ll follow up
today.

Then I drove all over town to find the pizza we ordered. The girls
had spent the day at the local hot springs and I go pick them up about
six or so…I called in advance to order a pizza, actually two, for all of
us…I go to the place and it’s moved…I should’ve known that…I pass
it on the doily route, literally, every day…Her Majesty calls The Wife
and it’s been moved to the other side of town, near where we live…Fab-

52 The Diary of a Nobody

ulous…We drive cross town and they don’t have a record of our or-
der…Fabulous number two…Turns out they moved out of the old
place and opened to stores, one on the west side and one on the
eastside…Hilariously, I had called the one on the west side, which was
actually close to the close store we went to originally, but now may as
well have been on Saturn…They made our order there, tho, which was
nice of them and beat driving cross town yet again.

The Wife and I met seven years ago today.

December 31
So we’re on the road this morning and I see I’m gaining on a black

sports car. This is moderately because I’m driving more or less the
speed limit, so the car’s going pretty slow, which is pretty suspi-
cious…I mean, the weather and the roads are both good…So I get
closer and the car actually pulls into a turnout and lets me pass…It
was one of those on the side that you can maneuver from the inside,
so it’s a state trooper’s car.

As usual, I am overcome with an immense feeling of guilt…I have
no idea why this is…I mean, I’m a good driver…And the trooper
doesn’t want me, of course…He settles in to his usual slow speed…He
he’d be difficult for us to pass on a two-lane mountain road probably
didn’t want to hold us up with his trolling for speeders, so he let us
pass so the days doilies could get through, even though we were ac-
tually driving to pick up doilies from a route from the big city.

Anyway, the trooper’s trap eventually worked…We’re in the slow
lane heading up a pass and I check the rearview mirror – which,
wracked with guilt, I’d been doing more or less constantly since he let
me pass – and I see three cars behind me, including the trooper…A
truck passes him at a too high rate of speed and the trooper grabs
him…Still being wracked with guilt I almost crapped my pants when
the lights went off, if course, but whatever.

Got home about 9:30 and The Wife, Her Majesty, Faith and Her
Majesty’s new boyfriend were playing a board game…They saved me
dinner, of course, which included Her Majesty’s world famous stuffed

December 2013 53

mushrooms…It was the first time I’d been up at midnight for the new
year while not working in quite a while.



January 2014

January 1
Bonser and I watched the Rose Bowl together at the post bar…Col-

lege football is a big fiasco now, if you ask me, but we both grew up in
Rose Bowl country and one of my fondest memories is watching the
Rose Bowl as a kid with Pops…I didn’t particularly care who won, but
it was really nice seeing the game…Bonser, however, had money on
the game and he was fun to watch because he was incapable of sitting
still.

In fact, he was incapable of sitting at all…He spent the game
standing at the bar, constantly taking his hands in and out of his
pockets and cursing at the play calling, the officials and even the
marching band...Fortunately, he won most of his bets.

His rug rat, Matt, was there, too, sitting belly up to the bar…This
is probably a violation of some state law, but as noted during Turkey
Bingo in November, we’re not too picky at the post, and Matt was
working some pull tabs while trying to make prop bets with me on the
game, like who would score first and who would have the most passing
first downs.

What’s kind of funny is I grew up in a place with mild winters, and
Pops and I used to joke about how all those in the Midwest were more
or less wishing they were living where it was 70 degrees on New Year’s
Day and now that we live where it can snow anytime between Labor
and Memorial days the snow shoe is on the other foot.

January 2
Another early start…Recall Monday we started at 0600 instead of

our usual 0900 because someone forgot to put a doily delivery on the
truck we meet on Fridays and today we were at it early because a doily
branch, sensing a busy weekend, wanted some extras put into their
Doily Dispensing Machine (DDM).

56 The Diary of a Nobody

So Brian and I were on the road at 0630, and even that was a half-
hour late because the truck wouldn’t start…This happens some-
times…It was below zero this morning and the truck had yesterday
off, and sometimes she gets temperamental in these situations…While
we were waiting for it to start Mike calls…Mike is one of our 17 super-
visors at the branch and he was just checking in to make sure we
were on the road despite the fact he was the one who had told us we
were leaving early today…I told Mike about our starting problems and
he asked if he had a can of engine starting fluid lying around…By
chance we did…So I followed his instructions about spraying some
into the engine intake and it didn’t immediately help but eventually
the truck did start, so maybe it did some good.

The only bad part was I didn’t have my glove on when I grabbed
the can…Bad move…It was, of course, as cold as the air, a basic phys-
ics phenomena I am never able to comprehend completely, and I did
everything but freeze a layer of skin off.

And then at our last stop some lady backs into us…Actually, it
wasn’t some lady, it was our neighbor, Gina, who lives down the street
a little bit…I am not really BFF’s with all my neighbors and I actually
didn’t realize this until I was copying her address down off her driver’s
license and thought boy, that sure looks like my address…She
thought I looked familiar and, of course, she knows The Wife…Dam-
age to the truck was minimal…A small dent…Gina busted her driver’s
side tail light though…She said we were in her blind spot, though you
gotta have a pretty big blind spot for an armored doily truck to be
completely in it.

January 3
Oh Jesus H, this week was long…We had good weather and good

roads today and it was still a 15-hour day, mainly because we were
dispatched to northeast Manitoba for a doily delivery that is usually
handled by our Central Canada branch but got screwed up due to the
holiday.

January 2014 57

January 5
The kids left yesterday afternoon…The Wife didn’t cry too much at

the departure of her daughter, which is about average, tho sometimes
there have been complete water works…I was so tired that afterwards
I went straight to bed and read even though it was only midafternoon,
and I couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed until this morning…I was
so tired some may have noted the lack of entry for yesterday…I
couldn’t even be bothered to do that, one of only two or three days I’ve
missed since I started this journal…I’m sure even Shakespeare took a
day off from time to time, though.

January 6
Once again Sparrow stepped up to the plate and showed his value

as Husband, heroically stepping in and making dinner last night.
I am not making that up!
The Wife had spent most of the day farting around with some girl-

friends and called and asked if I could make dinner…The plan was
some Hamburger Helper and, perhaps, if I was feeling particularly
frisky, some cornbread that had been kicking around the grain cellar
for a while.

I was actually kinda nervous…My kitchen skills are rather limited
and there was a better than average chance I would screw something
– and perhaps everything - up…I can, however, more or less follow
directions and neither Hamburger Helper nor the corn bread were par-
ticularly difficult even for a halfwit like yours truly…Key was timing
and I screwed that up big time as the Hamburger Helper was ready
about 15 minutes before the corn bread was, but that wasn’t too big
of a deal as we just turned the heat down a bit and waited for the
cornbread to cook.

Looking back, the timing was off because I completely underesti-
mated how long it would take for the Hamburger Helper mixture to
boil…You cook and drain the meat and then throw in the noodle and
sauce packets and some water and milk and after it boils turn down
the heat for it to simmer for ten (10) minutes…The mixture boiled re-
ally quick…Offhand, I’m blaming the high altitude, tho you probably
discount my own idiocy at your peril.

58 The Diary of a Nobody

The best part was The Wife raved over every aspect of the
meal…Well, both aspects…There were only two, of course, Hamburger
Helper and cornbread, but still, Sparrow ended up batting a thousand
in the cooking department …And The Wife was right, the cornbread
was really good…There’s still over eleven months to go, but offhand
I’m calling it Cornbread of the Year, not that we make a lot of corn-
bread in the Sparrow house.

This really happened:
I’m sitting a chair in the living room Sunday night…The Wife is
sitting across from me on the couch with the dog, putting the dog’s
booties on before they go for walk…The cat is on a nearby table and
jumps down and in a falsetto voice, pretending to be the cat, I say
“Can we put her down yet?” which gets a laugh from The Wife cause
it’s a pretty good line…Not Line of the Year, but still, a good line…An-
yway, the cat trots past the dog who must’ve understood the line be-
cause she tries to chase the cat, which was even funnier than the line.

January 7
Morning coffee was an amalgamation this morning.
We were low on our regular coffee, with only enough for a fraction

of a pot…So I threw in some of the New Orleans coffee, which has
chicory in it, and some packets from some hotel we stayed at…I’m
drinking it right now and it’s not too bad…The chicory kinda stands
out.

Work continues to be a mess.
I woke up yesterday morning to find an email from work – sent
Sunday afternoon – advising Brian and I we had to meet another route
a couple of hours south of here…Another Automatic Doily Dispenser
needed another emergency replenishment of doilies…By chance I hap-
pened to be up early and not thirty seconds after I read the email
Brian calls me from our usual meeting spot wondering where the heck
I am.

January 2014 59

I just finished reading the email, I told him…Apparently he had
read it Sunday and was ready to go bright and early…At the approxi-
mate time the email was sent I was triumphantly making dinner…The
laptop was shut off for the night and I am usually not important
enough to warrant checking email on my phone.

I do not move at lightning speed anymore, even with the benefit of
inertia, and it took me about a half hour to pick Brian up…It was well
below zero and the truck had been sitting all weekend and had very
little interest in starting…It took us over an hour to get it started and
we needed the help from our friends at the towing company, too…

With the kids gone I did my duty as Husband and helped The Wife
rearrange the back room…It had been used by the kids during their
stay and had been rearranged for that, so the back room is now en-
joying its third configuration in the past couple of weeks…As usual, I
think my help merits some sort of award, even tho it probably
doesn’t...

January 8
Our truck broke down…Again…This was lousy timing because we

were scheduled to swap it out so it could go back to the branch for
some TLC, but it didn’t make it…Real broke down, too, because we
weren’t able to get it field repaired like last time, either…It had to get
towed back to the branch.

So another route had to stop everything they were doing and come
up, so we could take their working truck and they could go back with
our broken truck.

What is really funny is, and I am not making this up, is our tow
truck broke down twice!!!...Once was a first for me…Twice is unprec-
edented.

Here’s what happened: we were heading down the highway…I’m
lying in the bed in the back of the cab – go figure – so I am not com-
pletely sure what went down, but there were problems with the air
brakes…The company sends another truck out, but it can’t take us
because it has another load on it…So the guys spend a couple of hours

60 The Diary of a Nobody

trying to fix it…No luck…By this time it’s dark and snowing and Spar-
row is starting to nod off in the back…Finally they decide screw it,
brakes are overrated anyway and the plan is to drive very slowly.

By this time we had already made arrangements to meet the other
route in a small town up the road, at an equipment rental place.

So we start out at about two miles an hour and evidently this is
too much for our tow truck because the transmission said screw it,
I’ve had enough…So we spend another hour on the side of the road
before two more trucks come…The first one is strapped to our tow
truck…The second one is going to run interference for us…So in vio-
lation of I don’t how many state laws, the first truck is pulling our
broken tow truck, which is towing us and we are being led by tow
truck number four.

With all the lights attendant with tow trucks and vehicles moving
slowly on a road, we looked like the Main Street Electrical Parade.

Brian and I then had the following conversation:
Brian: This is a fiasco.
Sparrow: No kidding. Partner, when does it officially become a

clusterf*ck?
Brian laughed and thought about it little, but deferred to me, as

if I were the All-Knowing Wizard on clusterf*cks.
Sparrow: How about if they lose the truck?
Brian: Yeah, what if it falls off and it rolls in a ditch?

We both agreed then yes, that would be a clusterf*k…Fortunately,
our doily truck stayed hitched the whole way.

January 9
I am tired of writing about work hilarity. Yesterday was another

brief 16-hour day…I delivered a lot of doilies, and it included another
spirited trip to Central Manitoba.

Today tho, was a more normal four hours.

January 10
Our American Legion post met last night. Usually we get upwards

of a couple dozen people showing up, but only eight showed up to-
night…Bonser couldn’t even be bothered to attend…In fact, when I got

January 2014 61

there, about two minutes before the scheduled start time, I was the
fourth one there…We’re all blaming the weather.

I said we should’ve approved things like monthly stipends and
vacations in Cancun for those present, but a lot was put off till next
month, such as preliminary planning for our spring activities, includ-
ing Memorial Day, where we put on a very nice ceremony at the cem-
etery, and planning for post baseball team…We did make plans for
bingo once a month and some other routine matters…Jim the Adju-
tant seems hell bent on making me Commander…Buck is retiring af-
ter a hundred and five terms it seems like, and everyone who wants
to be Commander probably already has been Commander…I still ha-
ven’t actually said I am or am not interested, tho I am, but Jim seems
to take for granted I am, which is kinda funny.

Also funny was when Jim told us we would need an honor guard
for a funeral next week…He was rather vague, except to say it was for
an old Marine at the retirement home, which led me to think the old
Marine hadn’t actually died yet, which turned out to be the case…His
family had called us to request an honor guard and their dad probably
wasn’t going to last a day, maybe two at the most, but apparently he’s
still alive and kicking.

In case you’re wondering, my next basketball reffing assignments
are in the 18th.

January 11
I’m trying to write about more than work but that is all I am doing

lately.
20 - get that 20! – hours yesterday!!!...I am not making that

up…Brian and I put in a 20-hour day…Usually Friday’s are 12-13
hour days.

Here’s the deal on Fridays: we drive to a town (Town A) a couple of
hours away from here to pick up doilies to be delivered to doily banks
and Doily Dispensing Machines (DDM)…We also do our usual pick up
an drop offs of doilies from businesses to the doily bank…When the
route is done we drive back to Town A and meet the other guys and
transfer our stuff to their truck so they can take it back to the
branch…Tuesday’s are similar, tho we drive to a different town.

62 The Diary of a Nobody

We hit the road at 0600, usually arriving in Town A a little before
0800…The route from the big city is usually there about the same
time, but yesterday we didn’t get there until 0930 because the pass
over the mountain was a complete fiasco…One, it was dark so Spar-
row couldn’t see squat, and two, it had been snowing like a big dog
and everything was white, which is really pretty and stuff but boy oh
boy, there’s no definition for anything and it’s hard to tell where the
road ends and the snow drift begins.

The roads were lousy everywhere…At the end of our route we’re
heading back to Town A and the pass was even worse than the first
time up…Good gravy, even fellow professional drivers were having
trouble, with a couple of semis stuck in the snow and there were more
than one occasion when I came to a complete stop because I couldn’t
see anything…This led to some modest hilarity:

Brian: It’s not really safe to stop here…
Sparrow, laughing: It’s not really safe to keep going, partner.
He had a point, tho…You stop dead in your tracks in the middle
of the road you’re taking your chances…But really, when you can’t
see, there is some zero point in continuing…It’s a crap shoot…You can
either keep going and take your chances that you’ll stay on the road,
or you can stop and take your chances nobody hits you…I would ra-
ther come to a stop…As it was, there as somebody behind to absorb a
blow from behind, which mitigated that danger somewhat, but we
were the lead vehicle so if someone banged into us we were screwed,
but you can’t cross the street successfully without some modicum of
luck so what the hell.
And the pass was closed for our drive back, which added two more
exciting hours to our day because we were obliged us to take the back
way home…We actually weren’t complaining too much, because the
roads were groomed, tho a bit icy, and it was far less dangerous than
negotiating the pass…We even came across a tractor turned over in
the snow…Brian stopped and got out but reported no one was in-
side…Earlier, on the way to Town A we were obliged to stop for a trac-
tor that was pulling a car out of the snow.

January 2014 63

Let me tell you something, driving like that requires complete con-
centration and focus every mile, at least if you want get home alive
and after 15 hours of it I’d had enough and let Brian drive the rest of
the way.

All of which got me thinking about some rather boring stuff…For
example, what happens if we have a truck full of doilies and we can’t
get out of town???...Our stuff needs to be delivered to the vault at the
branch, but our doily trucks are impenetrable unless you’re armed
like a panzer division, so we could probably keep everything in the
storage unit and have it still there in the morning.

Or perhaps were stuck on the road in the freezing cold with no-
where to go...I actually emailed Mike, one our (at least) 17 different
immediate supervisors we seem to have and he said no, they don’t
really have a Plan B for us satellite routes and asked what my thought
were.

January 12
A completely relaxing day yesterday…I slept till after nine, which

is pretty late in my old age, and even slept straight thru the now stand-
ard 4am constitutional.

The news on the food front is mixed.
The Wife made her famous homemade tartar sauce last
night…Since there is no point to having tartar sauce without a fish
entre, The Wife also produced fish sticks for dinner, an all-time fave,
if you ask me.
On the other hand, we are still pancake incompatible, with The
Wife continuing with the folly that five thousand small pancakes re-
main superior to two or three big ones …This one may never be set-
tled.

January 13
The cat ran outside this morning…She does this from time to time

when the conditions are right, namely her being in the vicinity of the
open front door…This is scary, at least for me, cause I’m a cat guy and
love our cat dearly and while odds are nothing will happen and we’ll
get her back safely, who the hell knows???...

64 The Diary of a Nobody

The dog is key here…She was immediately in pursuit and The Wife
found her cornering the cat near where the gas line enters our cabin.

January 14
Started a juice fast this week…Some carrot juice in the morning,

a Chinese-ish drink called Kombucha for lunch and some green juice
for dinner...The Wife and I have been off-and-on juicers over the years
and I had been eating like an oink-oink since Christmas Day and al-
ready I feel smaller, which is good for morale.

January 15
Here’s the latest Work Uniform News (WUN):
The branch sent me up some new shirts…Well, I got one useable

shirt out of the deal, tho I requested five…When I started this job last
spring I was issued five shirts and three pairs of BDU’s (other doilie
delivery employees have to provide their own pants, as well as their
own weapons)…Of the five new shirts three were short-sleeved and
two were long-sleeved…The sleeves on the long-sleeved shirt were way
too short and I haven’t worn them…Of the three short-sleeved shirts,
fairly early on I washed one with a pen which left ink all over it (and
also ruined my pen) and the other two – forced by necessity into every-
other-day service, are starting to show wear and no longer really pre-
sent the professional appearance I demand…So I requested, and was
approved for, five new shirts.

The branch, I am sure, meant well…Instead of five shirts in the
sizes I requested, they sent up two long-sleeved shirts, one with the
requested sleeve length, and the other one with the too short sleeve
length….Well, OK…I can wear the good one on days I’ delivering and
have Direct Customer Access, and I can wing it with the old short
sleeved shirts when I drive and nobody sees me.

Also, the boots have taken a beating lately, so they’ve been getting
extra TLC, including oiling in addition to regular polishings…I’ve had
these boots for years…They’re a leading national brand and they
weren’t cheap but as the saying goes you only regret paying a high
price for quality gear once, and they’ve given me great service.

January 2014 65

Had some trouble refilling a Doily Dispensing Machine (DDM) yes-
terday…It was a drive-up and Brian was in the kiosk trying to replen-
ish it but the machine’s software wouldn’t let him enter a password
so we could tell the machine what we were doing so it wouldn’t go
apeshit and set off an alarm or something.

Brian and I have a radio, of course, and there’s a phone that goes
into the bank, but Brian does not have direct comms with the branch,
so I had to coordinate that…In a few minutes a lady from the branch
comes out and tells Brian they’d been upgrading their DDM and eve-
rything was a complete mess last week and, evidently, it still was.

I am enjoying the juice fast, but I couldn’t even make it two full
days!!!...I was very hungry as the route wound down and had a couple
of hot dogs on the route…Still, tho, that is a lot less than the usual
day’s calories, and I am considering it a moral victory if nothing else.

January 16
The Wife – my beloved! – finished my Afghan!!!...She’s been at it

since September and has been making steady progress and last night
when I came home from work there it was, adorning the small sliver
of our bed commonly known as My Side.

Oh baby, this puppy is nice…Warm, of course, with a good heft
that announces you are in for a good night’s sleep, which is exactly
what I got…I was sleeping so good I even slept straight through 4am
constitutionals, which seemed to annoy the cat, but she’ll get over it.

In other news, The Wife and I are at a local convenience store to-
day…She’s inside and I am just walking away from the car, where I
had put something in the back seat, when a Sheriff’s deputy stops me
to ask:

Are you associated with the woman in this car?
“Uh-oh” I said to myself…I started to say “not again”, but it’s not
as if constables routinely approach me in parking lots inquiring about
my association with assorted vehicles.
Let me tell you something, there are a variety of possible answers
in this situation, too…‘Maybe’ came immediately to mind, as did ‘de-
pends’ and ‘hell no’.

66 The Diary of a Nobody

Fearing The Wife was hooked up inside and wanting to put finding
that out off as long as possible, I pointed to The Wife’s car and asked:

You men that one right there???
As if there were other car options…There weren’t…The deputy
(who I’d never seen before which is kinda odd cause this is a small
county) nodded and while I waited for the bad news – arrest, injury,
maybe worse – he merely produced The Wife’s mobile phone…He had
found it next to the car and was looking for the owner.

January 17
Saw an interesting fashion statement today…It was in a super-

market parking lot…It’s winter and while it was not all that cold it was
still a bit below freezing and there’s this not very small man wearing
a gray tank top that was a couple of sizes too small…That in itself says
this screams this is a guy who needs attention…Compounding mat-
ters was his gut, which resembled a pitcher’s mound as much as it
resembled part of the human anatomy.

January 18
We are still having truck troubles at work!!!...Recall our main

truck broke down last week…We got another truck which we swapped
earlier this week because that truck also needed some TLC and our
third truck was doing all right till yesterday morning when it took a
half-hour for the air suspension system to charge up…We radioed the
branch and Dave the Mechanic said check and see if the hose from
the air compressor is hooked up.

So Brian was dispatched…He is more qualified to find the left side
of the engine block near the frame than I am…He spent no small
amount of time trying to find it, tho, and by the time he did the system
was charged up.

When Brian got back in the truck I told him he should take credit
for fixing it, even if, as it appeared from the truck, he did nothing more
useful than fart around looking for something. Taking credit would be
good for his aura.

January 2014 67

Also, we received an email from Mike, one of the 17 supervisors
we seem to have at the branch which basically said the two trucks
we’ve used that made their way back to the branch have been a com-
plete disaster area and people were complaining.

This is not a bulletin...I am not neat…My bachelor pads were al-
ways disaster areas and one of The Wife’s earliest memories of our
dating life was cleaning my frig and wondering exactly what in the hell
was going on in there….Worse, for those who end up having to clean
our trucks, Brian appears to have a rather high tolerance for a mess,
too and the complaints were not a surprise…I swept it out once, but
that’s really about it.

January 19
Reffed some basketball for the first time in a month this week-

end…Let me tell you something, you go a month between assignments
and the edge you got in December when you were working games left
and right has headed south for the winter

There were a couple of ways to tell this…One, I probably didn’t
blow my whistle as much as I should have and two there were a couple
of times I didn’t go to the right place after someone called a foul…Usu-
ally the calling official goes to the position opposite the scorer’s table,
but once I forgot to do that and another time I forgot my partner was
going to do that…We take this stuff kinda seriously though, honestly,
if anyone in the stands noticed I’d be surprised.

I was even the senior guy on the crew, too…Let me tell you some-
thing else, if I am the senior man on your basketball crew you better
not be playing for the world championship because while I am good I
am not great…As noted, I did not call a whole lot of fouls and my
partners picked up on this and they didn’t call a whole lot of fouls,
either.

That’s OK, tho, if you ask me…Nobody paid their $4 to see us show
off our knowledge of the rule book…Not only that, none of the games
were close, and we had nothing to do with the outcome.

The first game was the girl’s JV game and I worked it with Chris,
who is in his first year of officiating anything at all...He was pretty
good…What you want to do with officials in their first year is build a

68 The Diary of a Nobody

good foundation, and Chris has certainly done that…His uniform, of
course, was brand new, and he wore it well, and his mechanics when
he called a foul weren’t rushed and he worked hard and any official
who looks the part and hustles is halfway home to a good game.

I did teach a lesson on one of the handful of fouls I did bother to
call…It was a hand check, where a defended had a hand on a drib-
bler…Technically this is a violation of the rules, but if you called a foul
every single time this happened the game would still be in pro-
gress…So you apply what we in the trade call the Advantage/Disad-
vantage Principle…If a player gets an unfair advantage from a play,
yes, then bang the foul…If not, you might want to let it go…In this
case, the defended was preventing the dribbler from going forward, so
I blew my whistle.

Later, during a timeout, we met near a free throw line and pointed
out that since I banged that call there had been no further hand
checking incidents…I told Chris this was not a coincidence…You can
bet the player had been coached to see what she could get away with
and when I blew my whistle they told themselves ‘all right, that’s a
foul today, let’s not do that anymore’.

Some of you may be wondering what officials talk about when we
get together during timeouts…Or you may not be wondering…Usually
it’s about the game…For example, Chris and I got together fairly reg-
ularly to cover this and that…With veteran partners on-the-spot in-
struction isn’t particularly needed, but you might want to discuss the
overall flow of the game or someone might want an opinion on a call
they made or whatnot.

Sometimes tho, we might be talking about a pretty lady in the
stands or pigs giving birth or anything else guys chat about.

I called a technical foul in the last game after I’d had the nerve to
call a foul on a kid…These are rare…In fact, I can’t remember the last
technical foul I called on a player…Anyway, after I called the foul the
player slammed the ball to the floor, which caused it to go high in the
air, an etiquette violation you really can’t ignore.

Since the games were in the same town as our fave pizza place, I
went there after the game…The Wife, who attended the first game but
had to leave afterward, wasn’t there, but I overcame that and still ate

January 2014 69

way too much…During my meal the kid I called a T on walked in with
his family…If they recognized me they kept it to themselves.

This is kinda funny: earlier in the week Ryan, the assigner,
emailed us with some adjustments to the starting times because the
boy’s JV was only going to go two quarters...I emailed him back:

I have games Saturday???
I scrolled down a bit before informing him I was only kidding…
Evidently I scrolled down far enough so that Ryan couldn’t see the
disclaimer and he thought I was serious…This would’ve caused Ryan
a big headache because having to fill three games on short notice is a
pain in the caboose….Ryan’s repl
Don’t do that to me!

January 20
There are two types of people in this world: those with three-

dayer’s this weekend and those without…I pity the latter.
The doily route isn’t running today because all the doily banks we

deliver doily deposits to are close today.
What’s funny is this holiday took me completely by surprise…Paid

holidays are one of the pleasures of the workingman and I can usually
our next one off the top of my head…Not this time, tho, and I don’t
know why but I had for, gotten about it until I started seeing signs on
banks announcing they would be closed today.

So I slept in – and was still up early because I don’t sleep as long
as I used to in my old age - and in the afternoon The Wife and I went
to a couple thrift stores to look for a bundt cake pan then went to the
grocery store and wrapped everything up by washing the car…We
ended up buying a bundt cake pan at the grocery store.

January 21
I love my wife.
I opened my lunch box today to find, among other things, a muf-

fin…The muffin had not only been wrapped for freshness, but had
also been sliced and – get this – buttered!!!...I am not making that
up…And not just a light film of butter, either, but an amount a grow-
ing boy like me appreciates.

70 The Diary of a Nobody

The Wife’s quote on the buttered muffin:
That’s a wife’s love note to her husband.
Also in the lunch box was a salmon salad…This wasn’t a complete
surprise because we had salmon for dinner last night and I requested
The Wife turn it into a salad for lunch…She even made it with a can
of peas.
The love note made up for yet another complete, hilarious fiasco
with the truck…Not only wouldn’t it start but we had trouble getting
in it…Now, entry into a doily delivery truck is Top Secret and regula-
tions forbid me to discuss in detail, but we managed to get in, after
three hours, which was funny because I had gotten in it no less than
three minutes earlier but for some reason it wanted to stop allowing
entry.
Nobody had any idea why, either, not us, not Mike, one of the 17
supervisors we appear to answer to back at the branch and certainly
not the mechanic…We eventually got in with a crowbar, trying an idea
the mechanic who came to help us start the truck had which probably
was not straight out of the Employee Handbook, but we were desper-
ate…We were so late hitting the road our usual Tuesday long day was
turned into a regular day, and we’ll do our usual Tuesday stuff tomor-
row and to ensure we don’t have the same trouble tomorrow we had
to drive to another town to swap trucks with another route, which
added another two hours to the day.
The Wife came in tonight and said the dog catcher was out patrol-
ling the neighborhood…I wondered why because we live in a nice part
of town, which led to a funny joke about how the cat called the dog
catcher, then would let the dog out to go potty, only to be picked up
by the dog catcher…The cat would then deny everything when we
came home and the dog was missing…Don’t put this past our cat…We
are the only humans she has any use for, and that’s only because we
produce food, and she can be persnickety and spoiled.

January 22
As usual our truck, the fourth we’ve had in the past couple of

weeks, could not get through an entire day of doily delivery without

January 2014 71

acting up, though it let us off easy…A red “Brake Pressure” warning
light came on…Brian was driving and this is an older truck, so I’m in
separate compartment in the back and the next thing I know he’s
pulling over…He calls the mechanic at the branch who advises that
since the brakes are still actually working we’re probably OK and to
shut the truck down for a couple of minutes and then when we start
it back up the light should go off.

Based on our truck experiences the past couple of weeks we were
pretty skeptical, but Dave knows his stuff and that’s exactly what
happened…The brakes continued to work as designed – stopping the
truck when requested so we don’t run into anything – and the route
got done.

And it should be noted the heater in the back compartment didn’t
work for the first couple of hours…This blew because I was in the back
compartment for the first couple of hours and it was minus zero when
we started out…Oh baby, it was cold…When we got to the town where
we were meeting a route out of the branch I called Dave the Mechanic
to see if he had, you know, a field repair we could try…He did, too…It
seems there are some valves where the engine entered the cab and
they were closed…Brian opened them – this was too technical for me
to handle – and in short order the back compartment was toasty
warm.

Which provided further proof Sparrow will whine about absolutely
anything because after a while it got downright hot and the unit just
puts out one temperature, which caused me to swear before turning
it off for a bit.

This got me thinking: it’s been winter for a while now and the
heater valves were just now opened???...Where the hell was the truck
before yesterday, Aruba???

The Wife’s love note to me today came in the form of parmesan
cheese on my leftover spaghetti lunch.

Between the infernal holidays and our truck problems all I have
been doing is working the past few weeks…I had to turn my basketball
games today back in because we were doing yesterday’s long route
today and The Wife and I have had little time together.

72 The Diary of a Nobody

January 23
In an effort to talk about something other than work I’m going to

report that I recently finished reading a book: Ike’s Bluff by Evan
Thomas.

The presidency has always interested me, and I have always been
an enthusiastic reader on the subject, but this was the first Eisen-
hower book I can remember reading for some reason…The book fo-
cuses on how Ike confronted the specter of total nuclear war with the
Soviet Union with his bluff being he was not afraid of nuking the hell
out of the Soviets even though he really had no intention of doing
anything of the sort.

It took forever to finish this book because one, I am not a fast
reader and two I haven’t had a whole lot of time, usually reading before
I go to bed and since I’m old now I usually last about ten minutes
before setting the book on my chest and nodding off.

January 24
The Sneak-a-Cup feature on our coffee pot isn’t working…I don’t

use it too often, I’m up pretty early and I usually have the coffee going
while I enjoy my morning constitutional with the cat, but not this
morning and I couldn’t be bothered to wait the extra two minutes it
would’ve taken for the coffee to finish brewing.

I learned to disregard the coffee’s status from my brother…This
was years ago, in the Bachelor Era, and he spent a summer with me
and one morning he couldn’t be bothered to wait for the morning cof-
fee to finish brewing…It was about halfway through when he simply
pulled out the pot and poured himself a cup with coffee continuing to
spew out…I immediately did some research and discovered Sneak-A-
Cup technology and had a new coffee maker in place by the following
morning.

My brother also wasn’t too picky about the type of coffee I
bought…His comment:

I don’t drink it for the taste.
So yesterday I’m at Stanko’s house talking about some American
Legion stuff and it turns out Stanko bacheloring it this week…This

January 2014 73

wasn’t a bulletin, judging by the kitchen…The counter was strewn
with crackers, bread, corn chips and a jar of peanut butter.

Well, at least you’re eating well, judging by the crackers and bread
and jar of peanut butter.

He’s probably eating over the sink, too.
Speaking of eating well, The Wife had a great meal for me when I
got home from work tonight...The only downside is the cat wasn’t
there to enjoy it with me…The cat usually stays away from The Wife’s
side of the table because she doesn’t like being thrown against the
wall but I’ll be honest, I could never be bothered to shoo the cat away
when she tried to eat with me and it is probably too late now and she
has long been in the habit of enjoying my meals with me…The Wife
wasn’t having any of that tonight after the dog chased the cat on the
table and knocked my sweet potato to the floor, though, and she threw
the cat in the back room and her anguished meows could be heard
throughout dinner.

January 25
Brian’s big idea yesterday on the route was to start his own taxi

service…He lives in a house on the mountain with several other people
and it seems he spends no small amount of time driving them around
and it occurred to him he could make some good dough driving people
for money…We had our usual 14-hour day yesterday and he talked
about it randomly throughout the day.

This was not an easy conversation to have…Recall we do not have
our usual truck, which has one compartment for everyone…Our cur-
rent truck is older and has separate compartments for the driver and
the delivery guy…There is an intercom between the two compartments
but that is not working in this truck – imagine that – so we use our
radios to talk back and forth despite the fact I am sitting no more than
a couple feet behind Brian.

Anyway, conversation is a fiasco because I don’t keep my radio
right next to my ear…I keep it in the radio holder on my duty belt and
I can never understand what Brian says right off the bat and I am
always asking him to repeat it…Combine that with the fact our radios

74 The Diary of a Nobody

are not digital surround sound and you can see where a long conver-
sation could be tough…

The Wife spent most of the day babysitting at a neighbors…Once
she walked in and wondered where the duct tape was because it
wasn’t in the tool bag…As it was, it was still upstairs, because I
couldn’t be bothered to have brought it down after I used it two
months ago…I am still not sure why she needed duct tape while
babysitting…Maybe she wanted to tape the kid’s mouth shut.

January 26
Sunday morning hotcakes were completely brilliant
I helped, too, reading the recipe from the cookbook.
Again, our Hotcake Incompatibility showed, tho…The Wife prefers

her hotcakes stacked…I prefer them spread out.
Bonser over today, the first time we’ve seen each other in a

while….Weed is legal in our state, now and neither of us are too sur-
prised the legal weed roll out has gone off without too much fuss: we’re
pretty mellow up here to begin with.

Why did the government need to get involved, tho???...The state is
regulating it from cultivation to sale and a government being a gov-
ernment they are taxing it, too…Bonser was in favor of this, noting
there is no reason weed shouldn’t be treated the same as booze.

I don’t know…I said it seemed to me potheads had a pretty effec-
tive payment and distribution system in place when weed was illegal,
so all the government really needed to do was eliminate the penalties
for it and everyone would be happy.

January 28
Though I am happy with our Sunday morning hotcake tradition, I

told The Wife today I would not completely object to biscuits and gravy
this weekend.

I do not have a long history with this tasty breakfast treat…I grew
up in LA, which is hardly a biscuits and gravy hotbed…In fact, I was
out of the house before I’d even heard of biscuits and gravy…I was in
the Navy and had come off the mid-watch and it was breakfast time
and biscuits and gravy were on the menu…I had never heard of it

January 2014 75

before and my first thought was why in the hell would anyone want to
put gravy on a perfectly good biscuit.

I quickly found out: because it’s really good…I told The Wife I want
homemade biscuits, big enough that a growing boy like me would ap-
preciate, and homemade gravy with chunks of sausage the size of golf
balls in it.

The Wife is taking her mission so seriously she tested a batch of
biscuits tonight…The Wife is a splendid cook, and it is not the Upset
of the Year they were really good.

The only thing was, she made them really small, like her hot-
cakes!!!...I don’t understand this at all…They were, officially, Test Bis-
cuits so I am not getting too worked up over the matter, but come
Sunday I am certainly hoping for something a bit more man-sized.

There hasn’t been any Test Gravy, yet, tho…The Wife said she is
investigating a variety of recipes and may end up winging it Sun-
day…Her cook is very old, in fact it has recipes for animals you might
find in the wild, so it can probably be counted on to have a decent
gravy recipe.

January 29
More basketball Saturday…I don’t think I would mind working

more, but delivering doilies is such a crap shoot that weekday games
are sometimes tough to make, and I can’t work on Friday’s at all,
which is a busy night.

I will be missing a funeral, too…A post member died yesterday, a
60-plus year post member, too, and I was contacted about being part
of the honor guard…We do this well and I really like being a part of
it…I met him once when we were at the Old Veteran’s Home, but the
funeral and my first game are more or less at the same time.

January 30
With three basketball games to officiate Saturday you may be won-

dering how I keep track of everything in my busy, go-go life…You will
be pleased to note Sparrow is in step with second-decade-of-the-21st-
century technology.

76 The Diary of a Nobody

This wasn’t the case last year, when I virtually ignored my
smartphone and stubbornly insisted on writing things down in my
‘calendar’ but I didn’t even to buy one this year…Stuff is automatically
entered in my phone, and that immediately goes to the calendar on
my laptop…Or vice-versa…Sometimes I’ll enter it in the laptop calen-
dar first…Good luck stopping me.

The Wife seems content with her recipe lineup for Sunday’s bis-
cuits and gravy extravaganza.

January 31
Brian took the day off, so I picked up Brian II in Town A today…B-

II and I go way back…Well, at least to earlier this year…He was one
the people who trained me on this job…He is an excellent driver and
I was a not-too-experienced winter driver when I started and he taught
me well.

B-II reported they’ve shuffled around the duties of our supervisors,
which they seem to do more or less every couple of weeks…We weren’t
told about this, of course and B-II said he wasn’t entirely sure who
the outlying routes report to now. He also said the branch is very
shorthanded right now, shorthanded enough so that three supervi-
sors were on routes today.

B-II is still in his 20’s and he was not familiar with a song on the
radio I was humming along to…It was You’re So Vain by Carly Simon.

B-II: I never heard it before.
Sparrow: Really????...It’s by Carly Simon.
B-II, somewhat embarrassed: I’ve never heard of her, either.
I laughed and, more or less from memory, I told him the subject
of the song had been one of the great mysteries of the seventies, along
with the identity of Watergate source Deep Throat
Even more hilarity ensued because it was plain B-II wasn’t entirely
clear on what in the hell a Deep Throat was, either…He was familiar
with Nixon and Watergate, but not about Woodward and Bernstein or
Woodward’s source Deep Throat so I told him about that, too.
B-II isn’t married yet, so in addition to his history lesson I gave
him some pointers on Marital Communications.

January 2014 77

The Wife had made me seafood salad for lunch…It was good…It
wasn’t Lunch of the Year, but it was, officially, Good…I told B-II I had
texted her that, along with my immense thanks, and that Good, was
code for, well, Good…The Wife threw some of the five spices in there
and just a bit of the five spices goes a long way, and the five spices
today were rather assertive and that the Good ranking was Husband
Code for that and that The Wife would pick up on that.

I was right, of course…Later in the day I was violating company
policy by talking to The Wife on the phone and she asked about how
lunch was…I reissued by Good ranking and she fretted that it wasn’t
up to snuff, though I reassured lunch was Good.

I told B-II this was further code, that The Wife was, in fact, won-
dering if she had put too much of the five spices in her husband’s
lunch and that my continuing to say lunch had been Good was con-
firmation of this, but that she hadn’t put too much of the five spices
in so that it was Bad.

I told B-II that communication like this was key because it allowed
me to note lunch had been Good if not Great without actually having
to issue an Official Critique.

B-II laughed and shook his head and I think reaffirmed his com-
mitment to the bachelor life.

We got off easy with the weather, too…The forecast had called for
snow all along our route today and while I wasn’t too worried about
falling off the side of a mountain, I had some zero interest in logging
another 20-hour day like we did a couple-three weeks ago.

Everything was OK, though…There was very little snow and while
I was about 40 minutes later than normal getting to Town A, I was
there before the other route and the roads were good all day…This is
not the Upset of the Year because, as noted, forecasters have trouble
accurately predicting anything more than scattered clouds up here.



February 2014

February 1
Oh, baby, some really good officiating today…Had to wait for the

third game to get it, tho…I was mentally on the moon for the first game
and the second game was a blowout.

Game 1 was funny…I’d had a good night’s sleep and The Wife
made me carrot juice and oatmeal – which is a great pregame meal –
and I was yawning right before tipoff…Mentally I was on the moon…I
ran hard, but I was happy when the game was over.

I was mentally stable for game two, but it was a route and has
already been forgotten.

Game three, the boy’s varsity game, was a keeper tho…Both teams
were well coached and fundamentally sound and played the game the
way it was meant to be played and Daryl, Dave and I delivered one
hell of a game.

Actually, we were better than that...I was about as good as I’ve
been in my short career and all three of us delivered our very best for
32 minutes, which turns out to be one hell of a feeling.

Good thing, too, because the players were delivering their very
best…About midway through the second quarter I began suspecting
something was up…I had just made a charge call on a player driving
to the basket…It was a close call, the type that usually gets the crowd,
not to mention the coach the call went against, worked up, but not
this time…Nobody said word one, and when Dave and I were changing
position he said “good call”.

All right…The mindset changed right there…It was a hell of a game
to that point and something inside said

All right Sparrow, you’re a bit better today than you’ve been before.
You might think that would have a calming effect but you would
be wrong because Sparrow’s next thought
Don’t muck this up…

80 The Diary of a Nobody

You can’t rest on your laurels…You gotta keep at it cause the play-
ers are…You can’t be great for a quarter and a half cause there’s still
a lot more game to go.

Halftime was pretty quiet…Daryl said we were doing really well
and we weren’t going to bother fussing over some ticky-tack, nickel
and dime crap…It was more of the same in the third quarter…The
game and the officials were really good…At the end of third quarter we
met at mid-court…Daryl said:

Men, we are not going to remember how good we were the first three
quarters if we don’t bring this home.

Daryl – who’s been reffing since they had the center jump after
baskets - didn’t wait for us to respond, he merely walked to his posi-
tion…He’d made his point.

We brought it home…Don’t doubt that, cause we sure didn’t…It
was funny the confidence I had…I’d never been in a game like this
before but I knew we’d finish strong…It was a great feeling leaving the
court after the game and in the locker room – actually the teacher’s
lounge – Dave said this was why we officiate.

The Wife knew we were good, too…She had a big hug for me before
we walked to the car and said I sure earned my biscuits and gravy
tomorrow morning.

The only downside is I am not as young as I used to be and I am
rather sore as I write this…Three games running on a wood floor is a
lot of pounding and I will probably be stiff as a board in the morning
but that will be a small price to pay…A heck of a day.

February 2
I was up early for Biscuits and Gravy Sunday, our first ever…The

good news is I wasn’t as sore as I thought I would be after reffing three
games Saturday…I thought it might be one of those deals where I felt
like I got hit by a truck and while the back complained, rather loudly,
for the first half-hour or so I was up, after that I felt good.

To make myself useful as possible during the cooking evolution, I
spot-checked the sausage after The Wife cooked it…Passed with flying
colors…I did another spot check during gravy prep and while it ap-
peared a bit watery, I seem to recall from watching Dad make gravy

February 2014 81

that it thickens as it cooks…I also checked the biscuits in the
oven…They are looking to be on schedule, too…Homemade biscuits,
of course…They’re rectangular in shape, not the more traditional
round…I’m more than OK with that.

Go Time: biscuits are done and the gravy is in a large bowl…As
usual, The Wife made enough to feed the fleet, key for a growing boy
like me and they are – and I know it’s still early in the year yet – Bis-
cuits and Gravy of the Year…A total triumph.

Watched the Super Bowl with Bonser and his rug rat at the Post
bar…You would think cheap booze and the fact our state’s team was
playing would draw a good crowd, but it didn’t…There were a few peo-
ple there, but Kelly the Bartender said there weren’t too many more
than usual for a Broncos game and most everyone fled after the god-
damned Seahawks returned the second-half kickoff for a touchdown,
even though the game was more or less over after we couldn’t snap
the ball properly on the first play.

Matt, had little interest in the game itself…His sole interest was
fiduciary and he had long list of prop bets written down as if he had
been taking action…Bonser forbids him to do that, at least at the Post
bar, but Matt was working pull tabs even before our first cold one was
poured and had…Bonser said he listened to his kid and didn’t bother
betting on the game, citing Matt’s advice to never bet on a team you
root for and even joked that Matt wouldn’t take his action.

Despite the fact our team got their lunch handed to them, watch-
ing the Super Bowl at the Post bar was funny…And while no money
actually changed hands, Matt did spend no small amount of time hud-
dled with assorted adults discussing action he would be taking if he
were an actual bookie and not an eight-year-old kid with school to-
morrow…Matt reported that despite a safety being the first score of
the game he still would’ve showed a profit because everybody was bet-
ting the Broncos.

February 3
More good officiating today…I picked up two lower level girl’s

games because someone wrenched their knee…Like Saturday I had to

82 The Diary of a Nobody

wait until the last game to get it…It was good mainly because I was
working with the new guy, Chris.

He is really learning his lessons well…He has very good presence
and hustles well and generally gives the impression he’s been at this
for a while…The game wasn’t too well played, but it was close the
whole way and went down to the final shot and if it wasn’t the world
championship it was our assigned game and we did well…After the
game I took a cue from Daryl and told Chris we are not going to fuss
with an eval today, except to learn the lesson that come from enjoying
a job well done.

While the cat still joins me for morning constitutionals – recall I’m
up at 4am or so every morning because I’m old now – she has taken
to sitting on top of the towel rack and presiding over matters, instead
of sitting at my feet and letting me pet her.

February 4
Despite a lot of snow, we made pretty good time on the doily route,

getting home only an hour or so later than a normal Tuesday.
Still tho, that is a lot of driving and I hit the wall at about the 14-

hour mark…The roads were more or less clear, but in the residual
snow and water, combined with the truck’s headlights, I started see-
ing faces in the road, like Ed McMahon and Andre the Giant…Fortu-
nately, we were almost home and it was a simple matter to remain
focused and get us parked safely.

Don’t tell anybody, but I forgot my wallet…This meant I couldn’t
buy coffee on the road, which wasn’t all that bad because it would’ve
just made me go to the can anyway, nor would I have my driver’s li-
cense to give to the nice state trooper when I caused a ten-car pile-
up….Fortunately, The Wife delivered it when we got back to town.

February 5
Here are the results of today’s Glasses Audit: four pairs were

found…There should’ve been five, but The Wife tends to wear my
glasses, too, and one pair was lost and officially I am blaming this on
her.

February 2014 83

They’re just readers I got at the store – and not very expensive
readers at that - but I like the way they look and they’re durable, key
when you’re Sparrow, so I stocked up in the spring and I tend to keep
track of them…For example, two pairs are in a cup in the downstairs
bookcase and I keep another upstairs by the bed for nighttime read-
ing…The fourth pair is my day-in, day-out working pair…Where the
fifth pair might be is known only to Providence

As I’ve noted before, The Wife makes our laundry soap…In fact
some of you may recall, and may even have received, some for Christ-
mas, though honestly the thank you notes haven’t exactly been
streaming for that one.

Anyway, The Wife made some more today, six jars which should
last through early summer and which probably cost us all of two dol-
lars…The ingredients are simple: some 20 Mule Team Borax, some
Arm&Hammer Washing Soda and a bar laundry soap called Fels
Naptha, a name which sounds more like the name of a terrorist cell
than a cleaning agent.

In other news, the terrorist group Fels Naptha claimed responsibility
for the bombing.

The Wife experimented with some new power bars…I had one be-
fore my games today…It wasn’t really a ball per se, it was more like a
ball of seaweed which, it turned out, is one of its main ingredi-
ents…Along with peanut butter…

No, I had never had seaweed and peanut butter together in a food-
stuff, either…It wasn’t too bad.

February 6
Just out of curiosity I asked The Wife what her plans were for

Sunday breakfast…I want to play it coy, as if I really don’t care if we
have biscuits and gravy or hotcakes on Sunday, tho I am desperately
hoping for biscuits and gravy…At dinner tonight I told her, as non-
chalantly as I could, that it really didn’t matter to me, although it
did…Her biscuits and gravy were the very best the human species has
ever made, but I’ll leave it to her…For her part, The Wife was non-
committal.

84 The Diary of a Nobody

February 7
Mr Snow was busy today, causing delays for the route we meet out

of the big city
We had just reached Town A, on the Interstate, when Dustin, one

of the 17 supervisors we answer to at the branch, radioed us and said
Route 1 had driven off the road and we had to go meet them to pick
up our doilies… Dustin told us the mile marker and we radioed Route
1 and they said they were a few miles away from the tunnel.

All right…We found them in the snow in the median…Their truck
would be drivable after it got pulled out and neither Saul nor Freddie
were hurt…The highway wasn’t too bad, but things like this happen
even to good drivers, so we drove to the next exit, turned around and
blocked traffic for a minute or so while we collect our doilies.

We meet Route 1 on Friday nights after our route too, to give them
our doilies that need to be taken back to the branch…They didn’t get
there till 8pm or so, about three hours later than normal and about
90 minutes after we got there…Saul said they weren’t pulled out till
over an hour after we had left them in the morning, and since it’s two
hours from home to Town A we ended up working a 17-hour day and
I am very tired as I write this.

February 8
Reffed two more games today, giving me six for the week, which is

the busiest week of officiating I’ve had since I did six in three days in
December…Dave, who was one my partners in last week’s great game,
was again one of my partners and we turned in two more good games
together. .

Our first game was the boys JV game…They only pay for two offi-
cials for lower level games, so we were running pretty good…Towards
the end the out-of-town team was fouling to get back in it and I called
one an intentional foul, which means the team that was fouled gets
the ball back after their free throws even if the last one is
missed…During a time-out an assistant walks up to me to ask why
I’d ruled the foul intentional.

February 2014 85

Well, I am not the most experienced official in basketball history,
but even I know it is not OK for an assistant to walk up and talk to
me…It is simply not the way it’s done…His tone was cordial, tho, and
it was easier to tell him ‘because your player knocked him into the
second row of seats’ than it was to tell him why I wasn’t going to talk
to him but then he asked about another call and I showed him a palm
and told him he was an assistant coach whose job is to say ‘D it up’
and that we were not going to analyze every call made tonight.

Elvis joined us for the boys varsity game…It close, at least till the
last half of the fourth quarter when one team pulled away, and after-
wards Elvis said he put my name in for the playoffs again…I had a
playoff game last year, my first in basketball, and it was a lot of fun,
so we’ll see what happens this year.

In between games I sat with The Wife, who was sitting with some
friends…I don’t normally sit with, fans since there could be problems,
but everyone was mellow tho some parents whined left and right…We
here some stuff on the court, but it’s a small percentage of the paren-
tal whining that actually goes on…Zero of it was based on any sort of
basketball rules knowledge or knowledge of officiating…The only peo-
ple who know anything about officiating are officials.

After the game The Wife wanted to wander around downtown…We
live in a pretty small-ish town and the Winter Carnival this weekend
and we were both hungry so we parked the car and walked, eventually
stopping to eat in front of a Mexican joint

I don’t think it’s a Mexican joint, tho…It has a Mexican-type name,
but it’s everyone who works there is as American as apple pie and you
– or at least I – get the impression it’s not so much Mexican food as it
is a collection of ingredients you tend to find in Mexican food…I admit
I’m biased tho, because I can’t get my fave Mexican dish, a chorizo
burrito, there.

Later, we watched the fireworks at the downtown ski area…They
were really good and featured a skier that was all lighted up making
his way down the mountain…I pointed out to The Wife there would
probably be more entertainment value to the lighted skier if he
couldn’t ski, but whatever.

86 The Diary of a Nobody

While we were waiting for the fireworks some kids came up and
asked us if we knew where the dispensary was…I am such a goody
two-shoes I thought they were looking for a traditional pharmacy so
they could get a prescription filled and good luck finding one open on
a Saturday night, but The Wife knew they were looking to score some
of the weed that is legal in our great state now.

February 9
Biscuits and gravy again!!!...I kinda suspected it, but didn’t know

for sure till The Wife started cooking sausage this morning.
Oh, and I forgot to mention this Friday, but I set personal best

Friday, too:
Most Times Crossing The Continental Divide In One Day: 10
The old record was nine, done many times…It’s not really that dif-

ficult…You cross the divide twice heading over the mountain to Town
A and we make two round trips to Town A, so there’s eight right
there…Some days, however, we’re sent to Central Canada for a stop,
and there’s another crossing, making it nine.

Friday, tho, recall we had to head east on the Interstate a bit to
fetch our stuff from Route 1, which had run off the road and when
you go through the tunnel there’s a Continental Divide crossing, so
there was two more, for a total of ten.

I’d like to thank the members of the academy, my agent and The
Wife for their support in my pursuit of Continental Divide excellence.

February 10
The last basketball refs meeting was tonight…We had a pretty

good turnout, too…Sometimes attendance lags towards the end of the
season, but we had about half the guys (and Amy, our only gal) there…

There wasn’t too much admin stuff to discuss…Not everyone had
paid their $20 dues, we discussed the sportsmanship awards we give
to a couple of senior players, the end of season dinner and a couple of
other things so important I’ve forgotten them.

We were also given the opportunity, as we have been all season, to
donate to a fight breast cancer campaign the state officials association

February 2014 87

has been plugging. We are all expected to chip in a game fee and if it’s
not really mandated, but more or less presumed we will comply.

Look, I’m no pro-cancer, especially where second base in con-
cerned, but we’re an officials group and no one really appreciated be-
ing compelled to donate money…We’ve been very low key about it all
year, mentioning it at meetings, but otherwise letting the members
decide what they wanted to do…We were assigned a target amount,
based on our membership and I don’t think we came close to meeting
it, honestly.

In my role as instructional chair, I gave a quiz!!!...I am not making
that up…It was a pretty good one, too…There we no Stump the Ref
questions containing tedious, complicated things that are not likely to
happen, and most of them were from incidents that had happened to
me this year…To make it even more fun, some of the answers were
subjective…For instance:

You blow a call. Later the coach asks you about the call. You
A) Say it was a close call
B) Admit your error
C) Insist it was the correct call
There are a couple schools of thought here…Some will tell a coach
they munched it…Not on close calls that can go either way, but on the
ones everyone, especially you, know you missed…Which happens to
everyone from time to time…Some very experienced officials do this.
I don’t know…You admit one mistake and the next thing all your
close calls are suspect…On the other hand, you don’t want to be stub-
born and insist a bad call was correct, so I’ve gotten in the habit of
saying “You know, coach, it was a close call.”…I’ve never had a prob-
lem with that…Someone who has coached more than two games will
know you’re tacitly admitting you missed it.
I presume I will be retained for another year as instructor…No one
wanted this job in the first place last year there no ‘Dump Sparrow’
signs, rending of garments, self-immolation or other signs of mass re-
volt… In fact, some of the guys thanked me for the time I put in and
said they found my instruction useful.
February 11

88 The Diary of a Nobody

I have long since given up hope of ever sleeping straight through
the night anymore, what with nature calling fairly regularly now be-
tween 4am and 5am, so the animals and I have settled into a nice
morning routine.

The cat will usually greet me before I get out of bed, with a squeak
and then rubbing against my feet, which she will then sometimes at-
tack just for funsies…I then make my way downstairs…I put the coffee
on, then go pet the dog, who is usually on the couch and eagerly
awaiting my arrival, then I’ll fire up the laptop before retiring to the
can for morning constitutional, where invariably the cat joins me for
her morning pets, although recently she’s taken to presiding over
morning constitutional from the top of the towel rack, which she usu-
ally accesses my jumping on my shoulders.

I don’t need to be up for a couple more hours – and Lord knows
The Wife’s not up yet - so I’ll stay up, and this is usually when I’ll
update the diary and whatnot.

February 12
Polished the work boots today…And not just with the usual liquid
polish, either…The Wife and I were at the store and I bought the old-
fashioned shoe polish, the paste you put on with an applicator and
then brush and buff…This is easy to do because I have Father Spar-
row’s old shoe shine kit…Dad bought quality stuff and the brushes
and whatnot are still in fine shape.
I think the shoes appreciated the TLC…I am not psycho enough to
talk to my shoes, but day in, day out doily delivery in the winter takes
its toll, and I know the appreciated the attention…And they look pretty
sharp, too…They are not going to cause the Commandant of the Ma-
rine Corps to achieve and maintain a state of arousal, but they do look
pretty good.
What’s funny is I was never any good at shining shoes in the Navy,
and would usually pay someone to shine them up for me before an
inspection.
I did use the liquid polish on my basketball ref shoes, tho…One
thing I will not do is get patent leather shoes, which we had in the
service and are now fairly common in sports officiating …I was asked

February 2014 89

once why I don’t wear patent leather shoes on the court and I said
because I don’t sell used cars.

February 13
Had a visitor on the route today…Saul came up from the

branch…He’s the new trainer and we had to re-take some training
either because the training hadn’t been delivered correctly or properly
documented…I forget which.

We had the training at the cabin…The Wife dearly loves having
people over and she celebrated by making pumpkin bread…It con-
sisted of some not-too-exciting OSHA training and some really-not-
exciting TSA training, which really does not apply to us because we
never go to airports…Saul also joined us on the route, filling out even
more paperwork detailing what a great job we do delivering doilies.

Good thing I polished my shoes yesterday because there’s a sec-
tion on the eval form for appearance, and while he did not specifically
mention my freshly polished shoes, he did note neither of were wear-
ing excessive jewelry.

Our Legion post met tonight, too…No business was transacted,
but Stanko talked about the history of the post and uniform regula-
tions and a bunch of dry, technical stuff old men like us find interest-
ing…Stanko oven replenished the brewskies in the post frig and
provided one of those cheese/cracker/salami trays…It was so lei-
surely I’m surprised he didn’t wear a smoking jacket and pass out
brandy and cigars.

We also discussed membership…We have about 90 members,
which isn’t too bad for a town this size, but we could really use new
members under the age of 80…John came up with a great idea for
having a BBQ or some sort of other gathering for veterans this sum-
mer, tying them up and then making them join.

February 14
Got a break today on the route…Recall on Fridays we start an end

the day with an invigorating two-hour round trip to Town A to pick up