For hundreds of Western New Yorkers, the gift of longevity will present monumental problems sometime after the stroke of midnight Friday.

They've lived longer than their pre-engraved tombstones predicted, and their extra-long lives eventually will result in grave-site repairs to etch their passing in the correct millennium.

"I expect the phone to ring off the wall after the first of the year," said Sally Rosini, manager of Gray & Trigg Monument Inc. of Niagara Falls. "When that calendar flips over, they're going to realize, 'Oh, my goodness, my headstone says I died in 19-something and now it's 2000.' "

Owners of headstones that are not Y2K-compliant can expect to have to fork over at least $100 and perhaps as much as $1,000 for the necessary alterations, engravers said.

Matt Creps, a local stone carver, also expects to get calls, but not right away.

"I don't think we'll hear much until the spring, when the snow melts and more families are out at the grave sites," he said. "That's when they'll start noticing the 19s and they'll call."

A check with several local cemeteries and monument companies found no panic among owners of precarved headstones, though nearly all have fielded calls inquiring about repair procedures.