snippets

One of the consummate joys of working out at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA is that I get to hear amazing snippets from the infamous “Marcy, it’s everywhere” file.

FOR EXAMPLE
—1) The exercise-gym at the YMCA plays a boombox tuned to WDVI (“The Drive”), 100.5 FM, although it’s probably an HD feed.
“And now, presenting the lineup for S&S Limousine. First we have the Chargers and Chrysler 300s!”
“Next we have the magnificent land-yacht that holds 36 people! Granite floors, and lap-of-luxury seating!”
“36? Izzat all?” I thought to myself. I drove buses that seated 53; but they weren’t the lap-of-luxury.
The seats were green fiberglass-reinforced plastic, and hard.
And the floor was rubber on plywood. And if the frame warped or broke, the floor warped with it. We had one bus where the floor looked like ocean waves.
I think a so-called “soft-seater” held 49; and ya had to watch out getting up because a luggage-rack was right over your head.
Our buses were 40-feet long with a 33-foot wheelbase. Our bus-routes had to accommodate a mighty swing.
“30-foot wheelbase,” it crowed.
For cryin’ out loud; try to drive anywhere with that sucker.
My father died in ‘94, and our family got chauffeured to the cemetery in a stretch-Lincoln owned by the funeral-home.
Despite my recent stroke, I rode shotgun beside the stretch driver.
The turn into the cemetery was a sharp hairpin.
“NO WAY are we gonna make that turn,” I said. —The stretch had at least a 20-foot wheelbase; perhaps more.
“We’ll be all over the grass.” (It was raining.) “The rear will clip the hairpin, and the front will swing out,” I said. (Old bus-driver waazoo.)
When our niece got married they hired a stretch-limo. Thankfully I never saw it. I don’t know as the groom did either, as he was rather soused.
Almost killed his best man.
Same guy that carves the Thanksgiving turkey with a chainsaw.

—2) I’m walking down the main drag in front of the YMCA, shortly after exiting.
A 200-pound bespectacled Harley-momma is walking toward me from the other direction.
All-of-a-sudden: “Dat-da-da-Dah-Dah! Dat-da-da-Dah-Dah! Dat-da-da-Dah-Dah! Dat-da-da-Dahhhhhhhh.”
A “Ride of the Valkyries” ringtone.
(If my cellphone ever did that, I’d stomp it.)
Harley-momma unholsters her cellphone. “I can’t believe you were such a rat to put that thing away before ya took me for a ride!” she screamed.
“Okay,” I thought to myself. “Put away for future reference. I don’t believe the stuff I hear.”
All I could think was I sure am glad I’m not married to such a person.

—3) This isn’t so much a snippet as a traffic-incident; the sort of thing that rarely happens, but when it does, I can write it up, causing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I drive out of the YMCA parking-lot, west on Park Ave., under the twin railroad bridges, and then south toward the parking-lot of the West Ave. Shopping-Plaza. (I wrote this plaza up earlier.)
Granny blue-hair is ahead of me in a silver Subaru Forester.
We enter the parking-lot, and Granny sweeps far to the right, clear into the parking area.
I angle left to pass Granny, but then Granny makes a sudden sweeping move to the left, right in front of me, unsignaled of course, intent on parking in the handicap-slot of the Medicine-Shoppe Pharmacy to our left.
Since I wasn’t charging at 15-20 mph I could avoid her without drama; just a slight tap of the brakes.
She never demonstrated any knowledge that I was behind her. And sure used enough swing to make her turn — enough for a semi.
As they used to say at the bus-company pertaining to the driving of others: “EXPECT ANYTHING!”
No sign of a Dubya-sticker, but “Don’t blame me; I voted for Big Mac and the ‘Cuda.”

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. —Once Marcy asked where I got so much insane material. “Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I responded. (The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.)

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

RE: “Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.....” —My siblings all noisily insist I’m an accident waiting to happen; since I can write up each (and rare) traffic-incident.

RE: “Since I wasn’t charging at 15-20 mph......” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, insists you can — and should — do 15-20 mph in a parking-lot, which I say is too fast. He once dropped his motorcycle on top of himself in a parking lot when doing 15-20 mph toward an oncoming car. He broke many bones.

“Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right. “Big Mac and the ‘Cuda” are John McCain and Sarah Palin.