YMCA tidbits

(Do I ever leave the Canandaigua YMCA without something to write up?)

—1) Date with the dreaded Amazon-Lady.
My wife accompanied me to the YMCA for the first time in months. She will do a few cardio machines, while I do half the cardio machines I’ve been doing, and start using the strength-training machines.
I used to do their strength-training machines long ago, but they remodeled and threw out all their old strength-training equipment (Nautilus machines), and replaced with new that were somewhat confusing and intimidating.
So here I am using one of their new strength-machines, and Amazon-Lady gets off the fancy-dan new sand-trainer.
“When ya get a chance,” I said; “I got a question.
“Sure,” she beamed. “I’ll be right there.”
(She had to wipe off the sand-trainer.)
Amazon-Lady looks and can be very nasty, but actually, what contact I’ve had, she’s very nice. She’s also a YMCA employee.
“What’s this little dial?” I asked — a small yellow wheel-knob marked in increments of 5, 10, and 15.
“5 adds five pounds to your stack; 10 adds 10 pounds; and 15 adds 15 pounds. Beyond that ya go back to zero and add another block to your stack.”
“I haven’t done any of these machines since ya got ‘em,” I said.
“Really?” she beamed. “You need orientation. How about tomorrow? When’s your next time here?”
“Probably Wednesday (June 11, 2008),” I answered. “I get here about 10 a.m.”
“That’s perfect,” she smiled.
“I’ll look for you,” I said.
“By the way, my name’s Michelle,” she said.
“Well, I know you as Amazon-Lady,” I thought to myself.
“What’s yours?” she asked.
I now have a date with Amazon-Lady — tremble and shake!

—2) “I don’t know how you can be 64, and look like that!”
An old Geezer holds the spring-door for me as we access the mens locker-room. “Gotta let the young ones up first, young man,” he says.
We ascend the stairs, me two at a time as I usually do.
“You’re already working out,” he observes.
“Yeah, but I may be older’n you,” I say.
“And how old is that?” he asks.
“64,” I say.
“Yep; older ‘n me!”

—3) Distortion alert.
I’m quietly blasting away on the new sand-runner machine, and the Weather-Channel is on the left-most wallmounted plasma-baby.
They’re displaying a map of the Lower 48; talking pretty meteorologist skirt is waving frantically at the map.
That ain’t the Lower 48 I know. Granted they got everything flattened so the map projects as flat, but added to that is stretching to fit the HDTV screen.
Talking pretty meteorologist skirt is also a bit stretched, so she looks a little fat. Not that noticeable, but noticeable.
But the Lower 48 is way off.
CNN is on the middle plasma-baby, and also on the cardio-theater next to me.
Same image, except the cardio-theater, a normal TV, looks natural, and the plasma-baby looks stretched.
I don’t think HDTV is worth it with a distorted image. They gotta send an HDTV signal. Fat Vanna is not natural — Vapid Vanna ain’t worth watching anyway.

—4) Our electric garage-door is acting flaky.
I triggered it and it lifted about 16 inches and then stopped.
Triggered again, it went back closed.
Triggered again it opened 16 inches again and stopped.
Back down again.
“Well, I guess we gotta open it manually,” I said.
A few months ago when the opener was changed out the garage-door repairman suggested we should get a new door.
The door is original to the house, and at 16’ by 8’ is quite heavy.
Even at 16’ by 8’ garage-doors are much lighter, so we were thinking the door needed replacement.
So we opened the door manually — it takes two people. (And I ain’t married to somebody that cries “Girl.”)
I moved the car out, and then we closed the door manually.
I thought I’d try the opener, thinking it would just go by itself, and not open the door.
But it opened the door, all the way to the top; and then closed it.
“If I’d go to church, that door woulda worked,” I said.
“Yep,” Linda said. “Shoulda been watching GOD-TV.”

—5) Went to the Canandaigua Tops supermarket after the YMCA, ostensibly to stock up on Ben & Fat Jerry’s Chocolate ice-cream, plus purchase a container of Welch’s Grape-Juice, since I had run us out.
Linda had never been in the Canandaigua Tops before.
Only one container of Ben & Fat Jerry’s Chocolate ice-cream, so we headed to the U-Scan. “Welcome, Tops favored customer. Please place your scanned groceries in the bag,” said chipper machine-voice.
Linda had never seen the dreaded U-Scans before, but they were swamped. There are four terminals, but all were occupied, and yammering together: “Please place your scanned groceries in the bag,” over-and-over; on top of each other.
Even more people were standing in line to use the U-Scans, plus a lady was in a frenzy trying to scan all her 89 bazilyun coupons: “Please scan all your coupons........”
A Tops-employee was shepherding the U-Scans, and was in a frenzy trying to advise confused coupon-lady.
So we went to a checkout instead; they weren’t swamped.
“That U-Scan wouldn’a been swamped if we’d just go to church,” I said.
“Yep. Shoulda been watching GOD-TV,” Linda said.

My wife of 40+ years is “Linda.”

“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.” The ones at the YMCA have no sound; they’re closed-captioned.

A “cardio-theater” is an exercise-machine with a small flat-screen TV you can watch while exercising. It’s silent, so you have to use ear-buds, or turn on the closed-captioning. The Canandaigua YMCA got quite a few when remodeling their exercise-gym.

“Vapid Vanna” is Vanna White of “Wheel of Fortune.

RE: “If we’d just go to church........” —All my my God-fearing zealot siblings are telling me to “straighten up and fly right;” something my zealot father used to say.

There actually is a God-TV web-site — I don’t know about actual television. My zealot God-fearing sister in south Floridy is loudly insisting I watch it. They are considering going up to Lakeland, Fla. to be included in a Christian revival led by some converted tattooed biker-thug. As you can see, the site is soliciting gifts.

“Ben & Fat Jerry’s Chocolate ice-cream” is Ben & Jerry’s chocolate ice-cream; the best for sale. I got “Ben & Fat Jerry” from a fellow employee at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over two years ago. Best job I ever had.