Two things

—1) “Locked,” I said to my wife, after tugging on the immobile Mens Room door at Baker Park in nearby Canandaigua.
“I guess I’ll hafta use the woods,” I said.
Yesterday morning (Sunday, August 14, 2011) we took our dog to Baker Park so I could patronize a nearby Tops supermarket.
It’s not Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow”), but it’s the only park where we can let her loose.
Boughton Park is large and unfenced. She runs away.
Baker Park is a fenced city park, although not entirely fenced.
We can only let her loose along one segment, a part that’s entirely fenced, because she has found gaps in other segments.
One time she dug up some guy’s front yard in pursuit of a chipmunk.
Getting to Baker Park is at least 20-25 minutes, so I try to use the Mens Room before starting around.
“Is this your way of saying summer’s over?
Um guys, it’s only August 14th.
Summer goes clear until September 23, Labor Day unofficially.”
Around we went, then into the woods.
—2) “Now what?” I said.
“Please call attendant,” the U-scan said, in its usual disembodied voice.
Seconds passed; “The attendant is not here,” I said. “She’s on break.”
Seconds were becoming minutes, and I was stalled.
“I don’t know why I bother with these things,” I thought to myself.
“Because you can’t resist technology,” my wife would say later.
Finally the attendant reappeared.
She zapped the machine.
On we went again. “BIP! —Please deposit item in bag,” except I was beating the machine.
Until I hit the “pay now” button.
“Please call attendant!”
“Now what?” I glanced exasperatedly at the attendant. “All I was trying to do was pay. These things are so touchy.”
Again she zapped the machine. It’s called override security-jones.
“Please select method of payment.”
“BIP!” Credit-card.
“Please slide your card through the card-reader and follow the instructions.”
Instructions! What instructions?
“Is this amount correct?”
Yes. Process transaction.
“Please take your grocery bags and your receipt to the attendant for signing, and thank you for shopping at Tops!”
A triumph yet again over technology, with the usual hairballs of course.

• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• “Tops” is a large supermarket-chain based in Buffalo we occasionally buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua, which has U-scan machines for self checkout.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s six, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't too bad.)
• “Boughton Park” is where I run and we walk our dog. It will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.
• Baker Park has a park building with lavatories.