Notes from the Canandaigua YMCA

—1) Medical emergency.........
Someone finally fell off one of the treadmills.
Not me; although I’ve wondered at times.
Sometimes I’ve felt a little wonky, but nothing has ever happened.
I’ve been a member there over a year, and used the exercise-gym all that time, but nothing has ever happened; not to me or anyone else.
So here I am blasting away on the new semi-elliptical, and Amazon Lady is two machines over on an elliptical. —Amazon Lady is a YMCA employee.
All of a sudden, KEE-RASH!
I look up and someone is laying in the aisle, and the treadmill she was on is still a-goin’.
A motorized treadmill will do that; it keeps a-goin’ and throws you off.
Amazon Lady dismounts and walks up the aisle. It was all she could do to keep the lady from getting back on the treadmill.
“Oh no; I’m a YMCA employee,” she interjected.
The lady who fell off looked as haggard as Jack’s motorcycle-momma; the infamous Laurie. (“Slap another steak on the grill, Martha. Sweet-cheeks is comin’.”)
What she was doing on a treadmill in her condition I’ll never know. Tryin’ to boom-and-zoom, but looked pretty haggard.
“Maybe you should sit down,” Amazon Lady said. “Can I get you a glass of water?” (A really nice person; only vicious-looking; and can be vicious.)
Haggard-lady takes a seat two machines north of me, on a recumbent exercise-machine for old geezers I’ve never used.
“Don’t move,” Amazon Lady says; “I’ll be right back.”
She leaves to get a glass of water, but the staff-doctor strides in.
“Hi. My name’s Dr. Whatever; I’m the staff doctor. I have to interview you. I hear you had a little incident.”
Yada-yada-yada-yada; on-and-on they went; and around-and-around. They must have yammered at least 15 minutes, but I still had time on the semi-elliptical.
What I remember most is “Are you a member?”
“No, but my daughter here is.”
The doctor finally left, at which point Nadine entered.
“Hi. I’m Nadine Whatever, the head of this facility. I need to interview you.”
Around-and-around they went, starting with “I need your name and address.”
(Nadine was carrying an official-looking clipboard.)
Another 15 minutes of “yada-yada-yada-yada.”
But at the end was this exchange: “I’ll need a doctor’s clearance before I can let you back on that treadmill. Those motorized treadmills are dangerous. They can throw you on the floor. I can’t in good conscience allow you on a treadmill without a doctor’s clearance. You’re not even a member.”
“Yeah, but I am,” daughter whines. “This is my mom. She’s trying to get an athletic scholarship. (?????????) We wanna speak to the manager.”
“If you want, I can get a higher person to speak to you, but I can’t in good conscience allow you on a treadmill without a doctor’s clearance. Your mother can join, and we’ll show her how to use all the cardio machines — and many are less dangerous.”
“Nobody showed me” — I was tempted to say, but didn’t.

—2) Plasma-babies on the fritz........
There are three wall-mounted wide/flat-screen high-definition TVs mounted high in the exercise-gym, and every once in a while they’d go to snow — plus the cardio-theaters were going to nothing — an empty blue screen. Apparently the cable-feed was cutting out — probably our ISP again.
So finally a front-desk person came in and shut off the plasma-babies with her remote.
Oh well, I could care less. Those plasma-babies are only a distraction. And they don’t have any sound — they’re closed-captioned.
After about a half-hour, young macho dude hobbled in — he sprained an ankle playing basketball — and turned on all the plasma-babies with a remote.
The cable was back, apparently; and since it was macho dude he could tune the one to Sports-Center instead of the soaps.
Mike-and-Mike: Greeny saying “Golic, you’re an idiot” in closed-captioning.

Amazon-Lady is a YMCA-employee. We call her that because she is extremely muscle-bound.

“Jack” (“Jack Hughes”) is my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston. He noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which he bought at a Harley dealership owned and run by “Laurie.” Last summer we came upon a grizzled road-honey at a gas-station, who Jack suggested was “Laurie.” She calls him “Sweet-Cheeks.” RE: “Slap another steak on the grill, Martha. Sweet-cheeks is comin’.” My brother has spent a lot of money at that dealership, mostly on trinkets.

“Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-in-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”

RE: “Probably our ISP again.” —ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider; in our case RoadRunner via the cable. Last July my macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston visited, and set up a wireless Internet connection to my wireless router. His Internet reception was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP.