.....At the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA

—1) CHECKIN
(Much to the chagrin of the almighty Bluster-King, who tires of explanations, and goes bonkers if there is one, HE AIN’T THE ONLY ONE THAT READS THIS HERE MATERIAL. There are others; e.g., other famblee-members, the dreaded ne’er-do-wells, and people out there in blog-reader land; if any. I feel I should explain things a little for them, so there aren’t any questions, or confusion.)
The YMCA has issued bar-coded membership keytags.
When ya arrive, ya swipe your keytag under a laser reader.
What usually happens is that the reader acknowledges with a celebratory sound.
So I dutifully swipe my keytag.
“WHAM; Crash; tinkle!” (Sound of breaking glass.)
“Um, sir. Couldja do your keytag again? I don’t know what happened, but it didn’t register.”
“Yeah; it sounded like the roof collapsed!” I shouted.
The revenge of Bill Gates. The YMCA’s ‘pyooter-system is Windoze.

—2) SMALL WORLD
(This didn’t actually happen, but it coulda. I don’t generally jaw with anyone, as my speech can go funny.)
“I recognize you, but I don’t know from where,” I said.
“I do now: mighty Weggers!”
“Huhhhhhhhh???????”
“Wegmans; the Canandaigua Wegmans,” I said.
“Yep; sometimes I stock; and other times I supervise the front-end,” he said.
“Greatest store in the entire universe — even better than Wal*Mart. Ya never see Wal*Mart at the top of the Fortune ‘100 best places to work.’”

The “almighty Bluster-King” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.

The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.

“‘Pyooter-system” is computer-system. “Windoze” is the MAC pronunciation of Microsoft Windows. “Bill Gates” is the president of Microsoft.

RE: “My speech can go funny......” —I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech.

“Mighty Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

My tub-thumping siblings are always saying Wal*Mart is the greatest store in the universe, and that I am reprehensible because I don’t agree.

Every year, Fortune Magazine lists the best 100 places to work nationwide. Wegmans is usually in the top five; and one year was the top.