"Writer on the Storm Door"

By Jerry Zezima

If there was one thing I had in common with our old storm door, aside from the fact that we both let in hot air, it’s that we were becoming unhinged. One of us had to go, so I showed the door the door.

It gave me an opening to avoid serious injury should the door fall on my head, in which case the glass would be shattered and the frame bent but my head would still be intact.

My wife, Sue, agreed, not just about my head but the storm door, which she used every day, often several times, to go to the gym, to the grocery store, to the mailbox or to escape the silly remarks that constantly pour from my head, whether a door falls on it or not.

“It’s about 15 years old,” she told me.

“My head is a lot older than that,” I replied. “You must be referring to my maturity level.”

“And,” Sue added, rolling the eyes in her own head and ignoring yet another silly remark, “the warranty is probably up. We need a new storm door.”

We went to a home improvement store and ordered a door that was exactly like the one that needed to be replaced.

A couple of weeks later, we met Chris Riehm, an independent contractor who had come over to take down the old storm door and install the new one.

We ended up talking, naturally, about lizards.

“On one job, I had removed the door but hadn’t yet put in the new one and a lizard got in the house,” remembered Chris, who said he likes the scaly creatures and knows a lot about them.

“You could be a herpetologist,” I said, referring to a scientist who studies reptiles and amphibians.

“There was a reptile museum in North Carolina that I loved,” Chris said. “I went back with my kids, but it had closed because the owner shot and killed her husband.”

“Did she say, ‘See you later, alligator’?” I wondered. “Or, ‘In a while, crocodile’? She also could have killed him with a boa and arrow.”

“Stop!” hissed Sue, who hates lizards only slightly less than my silly remarks.

That left the door open for Chris to use the closer to keep the door open (so why isn’t it called the opener?) while he removed the fixtures.

“My storm door doesn’t even have a closer,” said Chris, adding that he and his wife have five young kids who “go in and out all day long.”

“Sue used to lock herself out all the time,” I said. “One time our daughter locked herself out and called me to come home and let her in. I said to her, ‘You remembered your phone but not the key?’ She said, ‘What’s more important?’ ”

“It didn’t matter,” Sue said. “She went around back and climbed in through the kitchen window.”

“The kitchen has French doors that don’t open,” I said. “I don’t know why we have them. We can’t speak French, although our daughter’s husband can because he’s from France.”

Chris took the old storm door out and put in the new one, which came with shiny brass fixtures that Sue picked out.

“Do you want me to put the screen in?” he asked.

“No, thanks. Just leave the glass,” Sue replied. “I wanted a door with full glass because I don’t like the ones with metal on the bottom.”

“In that case,” I told Chris, “the door would be half-glassed.”

“It comes with keys, one for each of you,” he said. “Put them with your keys to the front door so you won’t get locked out.”

“The new storm door looks beautiful,” Sue told Chris. “You did a great job.”

“And,” I added, “you didn’t let a lizard in the house.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima