Newfangled gizmo

—Last week I patronized a new MAC store called “Mac-Avenue.”
It’s nearby in Victor (NY), and much closer than my previous independent MAC emporium (Mac Shack); about seven miles instead of 20.
I never used Mac-Avenue before, since I always used Mac Shack, and Mac-Avenue seemed rudimentary.
Mac Shack also had Andrew, my wondrous all-knowing tech-guru.
Me and Mac Shack go back a long way — at least 15-20 years. First was my G3 beige desktop, then came my gigantic G4 tower, which I still have.
Then came my heavy 17-inch dual-core “MacBook Pro” laptop, “Leopard” at first, but later updated to “El Capitan.” That was via a friend, used from the online Apple Store. It wasn’t Mac Shack; but Mac Shack serviced it.
Mac Shack did the operating-system upgrade.
Mac Shack also got me into a standalone back-up hard-drive for Apple’s “Time-Machine;” and that standalone had failed.
I am now on a new MacBook Pro laptop, eight core, 64 bit, also purchased used from the online Apple Store; but by Yrs Trly.
Its operating system is “Catalina,” but it wasn’t Time-Machining because my standalone had failed.
Around-and-around I went with Mac Shack trying to get my Time-Machine working. The owner (not Andrew) suggested my standalone had failed, and it failed out of warranty, so I’d hafta get a new one.
Back-and-forth we went, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. Weeks passed.
Finally I decided to give up on Mac Shack. Beside Mac Shack I had two other options: one being Mac-Avenue, and the other being the nearby dreaded Apple store, where one takes a number and joins the crowd.
With COVID-19, I had to make a service appointment for all three locations, so I decided on Mac-Avenue.
So, up to Mac-Avenue for a new standalone. Nice lady, with pretty eyes, but not Andrew.
She was very helpful, and I even told her she had pretty eyes. But then came how to pay for it.
I took out my credit-card, and gave it to her. She then brushed it over some magic plastical thingy.
“Wait a minute!” I shouted. “I was expecting one of them Apple-‘Square’ things.” (My dog-groomer uses one.)
“See this Wi-Fi icon on your credit-card?” she said. “I brush that over my reader, and it grabs all your information. I don’t hafta use my chip-reader.”
“Kewel!” I said.
Last night (Wednesday, November 11th) I had to buy gas after our weekly bereavers eat-out.
I pulled into a Speedway gas-station north of Canandaigua, then took out my credit-card, planning to put it in their chip-reader.
Suddenly I noticed the pump had one of them Wi-Fi reader thingies on it.
“Try it and see what happens!”
I wafted my card over the reader thingy, and suddenly the pump lit: all fired up and ready to roll.
LA-DEE-DAH!
Wondrous technology! When I graduated high-school back in 1962 even pumping your own gas was beyond comprehension = a pump-jockie did it for you. “Check the oil sir?”

• Every week, usually once per week, I eat out at a restaurant with others who also lost their spouses. We been doing that for years — my wife died over eight years ago.