Racino

Yesterday (Tuesday, October 18, 2011) retirees from Regional Transit Service held a buffet brunch at Finger-Lakes Racino.
A “Racino” is a combination horse race track and casino; in this case at the old Finger Lakes horse race track.
For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. (I retired from bus-driving; medical disability.)
A bunch of Transit retirees get together every couple months for brunch.
We’re both management and hourlies — management in operations, not crystal-palace management.
It’s a chance to swap our incredible stories of all the craziness we endured.
Plus a chance to see how everyone is.
“What an experience,” I said, after I walked in.
The racket was deafening!
89 bazilyun slot-machines were all ringing loudly at fever pitch.
How could anybody get pleasure out of such din?
You had to watch where you walked, lest you crash into a glowering Granny aiming her wheeled-walker at a slot-machine.
You also had to watch where you stepped, lest you dislodge an oxygen-rig.
Seems patrons were tottering in their 70s, yet racino employees were spry in their 20s.
I encountered Gary Colvin (“COAL-vin”), a retired bus-driver like me.
Also a champion of sheer silliness, like me.
Gary had brought along his wife Dorothy, who worked in the crystal-palace at Transit, but not hoity-toity.
“What now?” I asked.
“First we sign you up for a game-card,” Colvin said; “to get a two-dollar discount on your meal.”
“Game card for what?” I shouted.
“A card for the casino.”
“I ain’t into gamblin’,” I said. “I ain’t emptyin’ my wallet to keep this place glitzy!”
“Ya don’t need to gamble,” Gary said. “All it is is sign up.”
We got referred to a sign-up counter.
“I need to scan your driver’s license,” the clerk said.
“I get this from the TSA every time I fly,” I said. “A 67-year-old terrorist; a threat to all good burghers.
“Do you want your card on a bungie-cord?”
“The card goes through our shredder,” I thought. “The bungie goes to the landfill.”
“Do you want to receive e-mail promotions?”
“NO!” I said. I trash enough e-mail as it is.
I was also issued a $10 coupon, and here things get very wonky.
For me it was the same as being given a $10 bill; both the $10 bill and the coupon work in a slot-machine, but the coupon not in the real world.
Next was to redeem the coupon into cash, since I’d never use it. If I had, I suppose it would record my winnings, which I could redeem.
So my intent was to redeem the coupon before it could be vaporized by a slot-machine, and I was told I could.
A third retired bus-driver named Ed Pollet (“pahl-it;” as in “ah”) joined us, and inserted my coupon in a slot-machine.
It spit it right back out.
“Needs the yellow stripe,” he said.
“WHAAAA.......?”
“I guess we gotta redeem it at the cage,” he said — a single human in a teller-cage for redeeming your winnings.
“No ya don’t,” said a clerk.
“Just take it over to that machine, and it will redeem it for you.”
“Aha!” I said. Just like a parking-garage, except this time its spits out money instead of needing it.
We inserted the coupon. Boink! It spit it right back out.
The yellow stripe bit again.
We got in line at “the cage.”
Reminded me of my local supermarket; five teller-windows, but only one open, with a big line.
Pollet disappeared. Another retired bus-driver, Ken Rossi (“Ross-eee”) appeared.
“Tell ya what,” Colvin said. “I’ll give yaz both $10 each for your coupons, soz ya won’t hafta stand in line.”
Seemed fair to me (us), the same even exchange I was gonna do with the cage-clerk (perhaps).
But I’m told it wasn’t, that I was inadvertently ripping Gary off.
I suppose due to my trading an unsure thing for a sure thing.
We walked to the buffet, finally out of earshot of all those blaring slot-machines.
Next was purchase a buffet ticket.
With my game-card (which I’ll never use) I get a $2 discount, plus Gary gave me $10 for my coupon.
Things get wonky here too.
My e-mail said the buffet cost $15.95, less two bucks, equals $13.95 each.
The clerk rang up $13.95, less two bucks, equals $11.95, less Gary’s ten bucks equals $1.95 for the buffet.
(I’m told I didn’t include the sales-tax, but the buffet-ticket was shredded — $2.85 total.)
WHATEVER!
The buffet was extensive. It better be, those slots were cleanin’ out all them Seniors.
No macaroni-and-cheese though, what I usually eat at these buffet-gigs.
I filled my plate with baked beans (obviously canned) and some kind of gigantic pasta filled with melted mozzarella.
Also a piece of grilled and seasoned tilapia; I can eat that.
Gary, sitting next to me, finished his plate and grabbed a a small plastic cup filled with chocolate custard.
“What’s that?!” I cried.
Everyone started giggling.
“I’ll tell ya what it looks like,” I said.
“Ummmm, taste good?”
“Looks like you’re here a lot,” said Rossi to Gary.
“Only occasionally,” Gary said.