"Say It Ain't Snow"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

Because I am a flake, and have been perpetrating snow jobs my whole life, I appreciate the wonders of winter.

The two things I wonder most about winter are: Why do some people throw away their snow shovels every year and have to buy new ones? And why do these same people go to the supermarket when a snowstorm is forecast to buy bread and milk when they never eat and drink those things when it doesn’t snow?

I got some insight before a recent snowstorm from Chris, who works at a nearby home improvement store.

“Do you have a snow blower?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, “but it doesn’t work. It did work until we had a blizzard a few years ago, then it conked out. When I had it tuned up the following year, we didn’t have any snow. Last year it worked fine. Now it’s on the fritz again.”

“Do you have gas?” Chris asked.

“You’re getting a little personal, don’t you think?” I said.

“I mean, did you put fresh gas in your snow blower?” Chris clarified. “Stale gas left over from last year can cause it to stall. You have to mix the new gas with oil.”

“Do you have a snow blower?” I inquired.

“No,” Chris admitted. “I have a 2-year-old, and it was either buy a snow blower or pay for day care. So I bought a manual snow blower.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A shovel,” Chris responded.

“How come, whenever it snows, people rush to a store like this to buy shovels?” I wondered. “Do they throw their snow shovels away at the end of winter and have to get new ones the following year?”

“I think they keep their shovels, but they put them in the shed and can’t find them the next time it snows,” Chris theorized. “The shovels move to the back of the shed and hide. Sometimes it happens in the garage. I think they have a union, and they have meetings where they decide how to outwit their owners and drive them crazy. The humans can’t find the snow shovels, so they come here to buy new ones. It is,” Chris added with a smile, “good for business.”

At this moment, my wife, Sue, came by.

“There you are,” she said to me. “I couldn’t find him,” Sue said to Chris. “He’s always getting lost.”

“I can’t help you there,” said Chris. “But husbands are often told to get lost, so we’re just following orders.”

“We should buy a snow shovel,” said Sue.

“We already have one,” I noted.

“Do you know where it is?” Chris asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s in the garage. I wedged it against the door so it couldn’t hide.”

Sue said we should get a second shovel. Then she said we should hurry up because she had to go to the supermarket to pick up some groceries before the snow started to fall.

“I hope you don’t mean bread and milk,” I said.

“No,” Sue said. “We already have them.”

“Why,” I asked Chris, “do some people always rush out to buy bread and milk before it snows? If you go to their houses on a nice summer day, you’ll never find them sitting at the kitchen table, eating bread and drinking milk.”

“I don’t know,” said Chris. “I would think that before it snows, you’d want to buy beer. Or at least hot chocolate.”

“Thanks for your help,” I said to Chris before we headed for the checkout counter.

“You’re welcome,” he replied. “Make sure you put your new shovel in a place where it can’t get away. And don’t get lost yourself. After all, you’re the one who’ll have to get rid of the snow.”

Copyright 2014 by Jerry Zezima

"The Big 6-Oh"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

According to an age-old maxim that has never appeared in Maxim, the racy men’s magazine whose target audience is not exactly geezers like me, age is relative, especially if you have old relatives.

I am one of the oldest relatives in my family, not counting those who are dead, and recently proved it by reaching the ripe old age of 60. In fact, I was so ripe that I had to take a shower.

Because I have passed this milestone, which is better than passing a kidney stone, I am offering some pearls of wisdom to all you people who are younger than I am, which these days is just about everybody. Those few who are actually older either don’t need my wisdom or do but will promptly forget it.

Here is the first pearl, which I got at a pawnshop: Wisdom comes too late in life to be useful to you and is best passed on to your children, who aren’t wise enough to realize that you finally know what you’re talking about.

As my children will swear, and not even under oath, I have never known what I was talking about, so what’s the point in starting now?

A lot of people my age say they don’t want to be a burden to their children. Not me. Being a burden is my goal.

Fortunately, my kids don’t have to worry just yet because 60 is the new 50. Or maybe even the new 40. At least that’s what baby boomers believe. As a boomer who is bad at math (and has the checkbook to prove it), I think this makes perfect sense.

I have had people tell me (because I have asked them to) that I don’t look 60. Each time, I have responded: “You mean I look even older? I must be having a bad face day.”

These people will invariably smile and say, “No, you look younger.” Then they will make some lame excuse about being late for a root canal and walk swiftly away.

Still, this is the best time of life because you can do everything you have always done, but if there is something you don’t want to do, you can pull the age card.

“I don’t think I should be shoveling snow anymore,” you might say to no one in particular, because no one in particular will listen to you.

Or, “I don’t think I should be lugging furniture anymore.”

Or, “I do think I should be lying in a hammock with a beer.”

This last one may not work, especially on a nice summer day when you really ought to be doing something that won’t give you a heart attack, like cutting the grass, but it’s worth trying anyway.

Here’s another pearl: Exercise and health food will kill you. Eat what you want because at some point in your life, someone will discover that the supposedly good things you have been eating for so long are now bad for you and that the bad things are really pretty good after all. And for God’s sake, don’t take up running because you will be hit by a car driven by either a young maniac who is texting or a little old man who can’t see over the steering wheel.

Speaking of driving, you can’t do it if you don’t know where you put your car keys. Check your right pocket. If they’re not there, look on the kitchen counter.

Here is the last pearl, which I plan to give to my wife before the cops find out it’s missing: Never grow up. I have lived so long because I am shockingly immature, which makes me feel young.

My wife, who is the same age and is as beautiful as ever, is the real reason for my longevity. If it weren’t for her, I would be either dead or in prison.

So enjoy life, fellow sexagenarians, don’t forget where you put your car keys and know that there are plenty of good times ahead.

Copyright 2014 by Jerry Zezima

"They've Got My Number"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

Not many people know this, because I just made it up, but when Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call, to his assistant, Thomas Watson, and said, “Watson, come here, I want you,” he heard a voice on the other end say, “This isn’t Watson. You have the wrong number.”

Thus began a long, irritating chapter in telephonic history involving millions of clueless people who wrongly call other people who often respond in such an unmannerly fashion that the caller has no choice but to unwittingly call back in a futile attempt to reach a third party who, by this time, could well be dead.

I recently received wrong-number calls from three people who were not only apologetic but so pleasant that our conversations could have been (if the callers hadn’t sensed that they were talking to an idiot) the beginning of beautiful friendships.

The first call was from a woman named Carol. After I said, “Hello,” she said, “How are you, Mitch?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I replied. “There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?” Carol said tentatively.

“This isn’t Mitch.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Carol exclaimed, adding that she was actually calling her friend Fran, who is married to Mitch. “I don’t have Fran’s cellphone number, so I called Mitch,” Carol said.

“I’m Jerry,” I said.

“Nice to meet you,” said Carol, a retired nurse who lives in New York. “Mitch and Fran live in Florida,” she told me.

“What’s their number?” I asked.

“I wish I knew,” said Carol, who noted that she sometimes gets calls from people who have the wrong number. “I try to be nice about it,” she said.

“Me, too,” I said, relating the story of how we used to get calls for a pizzeria. “This went on for months. Finally, I started taking orders. I don’t know if they’re still in business.”

Carol laughed. “Nice talking to you,” she said.

“You, too,” I replied. “Give my best to Mitch.”

A couple of days later, I got a call from a guy named Frank, who was trying to reach his son, also named Frank, who, like Mitch and Fran, lives in Florida.

“Maybe it’s a Florida thing,” I told Frank, who apologized when he realized he had misdialed.

“It happens,” I said, introducing myself.

“I should know my son’s phone number,” Frank said. “I guess I got the area code mixed up.”

“I’m frequently mixed up,” I said, “even when I’m not making phone calls.”

“I know how you feel,” said Frank. “Thanks for the chat.”

“You’re welcome,” I responded. “Good luck reaching your son.”

A few minutes later, the phone rang again.

“Frank?” said the familiar voice on the other end.

“Frank?” I replied.

“Jerry?”

“Yes.”

“I did it again!” Frank cried. “I don’t know what to do, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

He must have because he didn’t call back.

The next day I got a call from a woman named Anita, who asked if I wanted to be an altar boy at a nearby church.

“I’m a kid at heart, but I’m probably a little too old to be an altar boy,” I said.

“My goodness, I must have the wrong number,” said Anita, adding that she’s a secretary at the church and was calling families in the parish to recruit altar boys.

“I wouldn’t want the church to get hit by lightning,” I said.

“I don’t think that would happen,” Anita said.

“I wasn’t exactly an altar boy when I was young enough to be an altar boy,” I confessed.

“You sound like a good person,” said Anita. “And we’re always looking for new parishioners. We’d love to have you.”

“If I decide to become an altar boy,” I said, “I’ll call you.”

“OK,” said Anita. “Just make sure you don’t dial the wrong number.”

Copyright 2014 by Jerry Zezima

"Breakfast at Zezima's"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

Beer: It’s not just for breakfast anymore. But the greatest beverage in the history of mankind, which guys often use to hook up with womankind, is the perfect accompaniment to the first meal of the day.

I found this out after making a recipe for Scotch Egg, which I got from “The American Craft Beer Cookbook,” the fabulous new culinary and libational bible by a guy with the best job on the planet, beer writer John Holl.

For strictly journalistic purposes, I decided to talk with Holl about his laudable purpose in life, which is to spread the gospel of beer. So I met him at Alewife, an estimable establishment in Long Island City, N.Y., that serves vast varieties of the aforementioned brew.

“Millions of guys would give their right arms to have your job,” I told Holl, adding that they’d then have to drink beer with their left hands.

“It’s not as glamorous as you might think,” he replied. “I don’t go out carousing. In fact, sometimes I’m in bed at 10 or 10:30 at night. In Seattle, on my book tour, I was sitting in a hotel room with the curtains closed, eating olives out of a box. Still,” Holl added with a smile, “it’s not a bad gig.”

The dedicated journalist showed that he has a nose for brews by sniffing a Riprap Baltic Porter and commenting on its nutty aroma. I proved to be a little nutty myself by emulating Holl and ending up with a schnoz full of foam.

Next we tried a Medula, an English Imperial IPA, which like the first beer is made by the Barrier Brewing Co. of Oceanside, N.Y.

“It smells like Juicy Fruit gum,” said Holl.

“Except you can’t chew it,” I noted.

What we could chew was dinner, which we ate at the bar. Holl ordered a salad (fewer calories, less filling) and I had a burger (just the opposite). Holl suggested another Barrier beer, Rembrandt Porter. Like the painter, it was a Dutch treat.

“It goes well with meat,” said Holl, who had a lighter brew with his salad.

“I once made my own beer,” I told him. “Jerry’s Nasty Ale.”

“How was it?” Holl asked.

“It didn’t kill me,” I replied proudly. “It had a smoky flavor. I don’t know why. I didn’t put cigar ashes in it. But it was pretty good.”

As responsible beer drinkers should always do, we paced ourselves and didn’t overindulge. At the end of the evening, I told Holl I had decided to make Scotch Egg, mainly because the recipe came from Half Full Brewery in my hometown of Stamford, Conn.

“Besides,” I added, “I’ve never had beer for breakfast before.”

“An Irish stout goes well with eggs,” said Holl, 33, a warm, funny guy who has tried all the recipes in the colorful, 343-page book and is anything but a beer snob. “Let me know how it turns out.”

A couple of days later, I bought a four-pack of Murphy’s, an Irish stout that is imported by United States Beverage, also in Stamford. The next morning, I opened “The American Craft Beer Cookbook” to page 10, laid it on the kitchen counter and commenced to make Scotch Egg.

“Please don’t burn the house down,” said my wife, Sue.

Easier said than done because somewhere around step 3, as I was heating oil in a deep fryer and had turned my attention to removing pork sausage from its casing and simultaneously boiling eggs, the smoke alarm went off.

The phone rang. It was a nice woman from the home security company, calling to ask if I had burned the house down.

“No,” I explained. “I’m just making breakfast. Want to come over for eggs and beer?”

“I’d love to,” she said, “but I have to work.”

Sue opened the windows to get the smoke out and I finished making breakfast. I put the spiced, sausage-wrapped eggs on a plate and dug in. They were delicious.

I washed them down with an Irish stout. After a cooking experience like that, I really needed it.

Copyright 2013 by Jerry Zezima

"Christmas Letter 2013"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

Since I am in the holiday spirit (and, having just consumed a mug of hot toddy, a glass of eggnog and a nip of cheer, the holiday spirits are in me), I have decided to follow in that great tradition of boring everyone silly by writing a Christmas letter.

That is why I am pleased as punch (which I also drank) to present the following chronicle of the Zezima family, which includes Jerry, the patriarch; Sue, the matriarch; Katie and Lauren, the childriarchs; Dave and Guillaume, the sons-in-lawiarch, and Chloe, the granddaughteriarch.

Dear friends:

It sure has been an exciting 2013 for the Zezimas!

Jerry has had a particularly active year. Because he is often compared to the back end of a horse, he covered a polo match and actually got to mount one of the ponies. A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and no one can talk to a horse, of course. Except, of course, Jerry, who got an exclusive interview with the MVP (most valuable pony). Did the horse want to talk to Jerry? Nay.

Since Jerry has a feminine side, he tried out to be a roller derby queen. He didn’t make the team because that’s the side he frequently fell on.

Jerry took a class for kids on how to be a detective. He was guilty of arrested development. He also took a driver’s education refresher class that was taught by an instructor who has a speeding ticket on his record. For the record, Jerry has two. And Jerry took a class on how to make ravioli. He brought his culinary creations home and fed one to Sue. Fortunately, she didn’t have to be hospitalized.

Jerry also competed in a garlic-eating contest. He gobbled 13 cloves but didn’t win. When he got home and tried to kiss Sue, she raised quite a stink.

Speaking of stinking, Jerry published his second book, “The Empty Nest Chronicles,” an account of life in the Zezima household since Katie and Lauren left the nest but left a lot of their stuff behind. The book is, Jerry is proud to say, a crime against literature. It also comes in handy for propping up a wobbly table leg. You might even want to read it.

And because Jerry has been known to sleep on the job, he applied to be the new snooze director at Sleepy’s, the mattress company. Out of 70 applicants, Jerry was one of five finalists. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the position, which is horizontal.

He did, however, stay awake long enough to help paint a bedroom in Lauren and Guillaume’s house. Jerry, who told Sue years ago that he had hung up his paintbrush, didn’t bristle when asked to come out of retirement and assist Guillaume in painting the room pink.

They did it for a baby girl, which leads us to the best news of the year: the birth of Chloe, Sue and Jerry’s adorable first grandchild. Proud mommy Lauren and proud daddy Guillaume are wonderful parents. Katie and Dave were Chloe’s godparents at the christening and are a loving aunt and uncle to their little niece.

Jerry wrote a letter to Prince Charles to congratulate him on being a new grandfather, too, and received a postcard with a picture of the prince and his lovely wife Camilla. It will be hung above the throne in Sue and Jerry’s bathroom.

Jerry loves to play with Chloe, who not only is the most beautiful baby in the world but is already more mature than her Poppie. Whenever Jerry tells Chloe a joke, she smiles. The first time it happened, Lauren said, “Dad, that’s just gas.”

We hope your family has been similarly blessed and has had a memorable year, too.

Merry Christmas with love and laughter from the Zezimas.

Copyright 2013 by Jerry Zezima

"Hit Me With Your Best Shot"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

I am a geezer who believes that being healthy is nothing to sneeze at. I also believe that preventive medicine can be a real shot in the arm. That’s why I recently got a flu vaccine.

Yes, it took a little needling, but it didn’t hurt at all. Full credit goes to Carol Nelson, who administered the vaccine. Not only is she a fellow baby boomer who went into nursing after a long corporate career, but she’s a brave soul who, on a separate occasion, gave herself a shot in the arm.

“I didn’t want to wait in a doctor’s office,” explained Nelson, a nurse educator for Horizon Wellness, a division of Horizon Healthcare. “So I just rolled up my sleeve and gave myself a shot.”

“Did it hurt?” I asked.

“Of course not,” Nelson replied. “I wasn’t even scared.”

That’s more than she could say for a lot of people, like the guy who insisted that a secretary in the office hold his hand while he got his flu shot.

“And he was a big man,” Nelson said. “He looked like a teddy bear.”

Then there was the guy who tried to back out.

“He said, ‘Never mind! Never mind!’ I could see the apprehension in him,” Nelson recalled. “I got him to calm down. Afterward, I asked him to stick around for a few minutes to make sure he was OK. Half an hour later, he poked his head back in the door and said, ‘I’m fine.’ ”

Men, it goes without saying, but Nelson said it anyway, are the biggest babies.

“They say they don’t like needles,” she said, “but when some of them roll up their sleeves, I see these elaborate tattoos. I’ll say, ‘A needle was used to make them, right?’ They’ll nod and wince and I’ll give them a shot. Then they’ll smile and admit that it didn’t hurt after all.”

One young man who wasn’t afraid of needles also wasn’t afraid to get friendly with Nelson.

“He was batting his eyelids and flirting with me,” she remembered. “I said he should know that I’m probably older than his mother.”

Nelson, who just turned 64 but looks a lot younger, is the mother of two grown children who, along with Nelson’s husband, were very supportive of her decision to go to nursing school after she retired from the corporate world.

“They said, ‘Go for it!’ I’m glad I did because I like to help people,” recalled Nelson, adding that a lot of math was involved in figuring out medicine doses. “I’m bad at math, but I got through it,” she said.

“I’m bad at math, too,” I said. “Could I be a nurse?”

“Go for it!” said Nelson. “You could even give yourself a flu shot.”

“I’m a guy,” I said. “And a big baby.”

So I let Nelson do it.

“Which arm would you like me to give you a shot in?” Nelson asked when I sat down in a small office at work, where employees got free vaccines.

“I have it narrowed down to two,” I said. “Good thing I’m not an octopus. Do you know why there are so many octopuses in the ocean?”

“Why?” Nelson responded.

“Because,” I said, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”

Nelson chuckled, which came as a great relief since she was, after all, holding a syringe that could have pierced an elephant’s epidermis. Still, I thought it was best not to tell her any elephant jokes.

I extended my left arm. “I’m ready,” I said, wincing.

“It’s already over,” Nelson informed me.

“That didn’t hurt at all,” I said.

“Of course not,” she said. “When it comes to protecting yourself against the flu, a little needle is nothing to be afraid of.”

It was, of course, a point well taken.

Copyright 2013 by Jerry Zezima

"Do the Right Bling"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

As a guy whose only piece of jewelry is a wedding ring that I got 35 years ago and who thinks karats are what rabbits eat, I have never believed that it don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that bling.

Now, however, I have a band of gold that even my wife would like.

Unfortunately, neither she nor anyone else can see it.

That’s because it’s in my mouth.

This exquisite piece is a fixed mandibular retainer, which was recently affixed to the back of my bottom teeth by Dr. Stephanie Shinmachi, an orthodontic resident at the Dental Care Center at Stony Brook University on Long Island, N.Y.

I got it at the end of my five-year treatment at Stony Brook, where I had gone because two of my teeth — one on the top, the other on the bottom — had been pushed out of alignment. To straighten things out, I got braces.

This is not uncommon among baby boomers who, like me, did not have braces when they were young. How well I remember my unfortunate classmates who answered to the name “metal-mouth” and were warned, by sympathetic friends such as myself, to watch out for flying magnets.

I didn’t have to worry about such calamities because I got invisible braces, which go by the brand name Invisalign and are made of clear plastic, unlike traditional braces that look like tracks on Metro-North or the Long Island Rail Road.

During my time at Stony Brook, I was in the capable and always gloved hands of three orthodontic residents: Dr. Ben Murray, Dr. Michael Sheinis and, of course, Dr. Shinmachi. All of them deserve to win the Nobel Prize, not just for being able to shut me up for extended periods, but also for being brave enough to work in a vast and forbidding place that resembles the Grand Canyon with molars.

Dr. Murray, who was originally assigned to my case, graduated after two years of working on me. He was replaced by Dr. Sheinis, who also graduated after a couple of years of treating me.

Dr. Shinmachi took over for the final year of my treatment and finished what turned out to be a beautiful job.

“I’m like the last runner in a relay race,” she told me during my final appointment. “Dr. Sheinis handed me the baton and I took it over the finish line.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t put the baton in my mouth,” I said. “There’s plenty of room for one.”

Dr. Shinmachi was far too kind to agree, so she smiled (showing off perfect teeth) and said, “I’m going to give you a retainer.”

“I’m not a lawyer,” I said, “but I’ve been admitted to many bars. And I could use the extra money.”

Dr. Shinmachi was talking about the clear, braces-like trays that would hold my teeth in place now that I was done with my Invisalign treatment.

“You can wear them at night while you’re sleeping,” she said.

“During the day I like to sleep at my desk,” I replied. “Can I wear them at work?”

“Sure,” said Dr. Shinmachi, adding that my other retainer, the mandibular one, will prevent my bottom teeth from relapsing.

“I call it gold bling,” she said.

“Should I go to a jewelry store to have it appraised?” I asked.

“You could,” she said. “Just don’t try to hock it.”

“Do you think my wife would like it?” I wondered.

“Yes,” Dr. Shinmachi answered. “But it’s not the kind of thing you’d want to get her for her birthday.”

“I’ll buy her a piece of jewelry that people can see,” I said with my nice new smile. “And I’ll put my money where my mouth is.”

Copyright 2013 by Jerry Zezima