"A Houseboy Comes Clean"

By Jerry Zezima

Hearst Connecticut Media Group

When it comes to housework, my wife has it maid. And she is not too proud to say that the maid is her husband.

Maybe it’s because I don’t have a little French maid’s dress, which I would happily wear except I can’t find one in my size and I’d probably fall down while vacuuming in high heels, but I am one step up from being a domestic worker.

I am, according to my wife, a houseboy.

“That’s your title,” said Sue, who has told countless people of my new role in the family hierarchy.

To which our younger daughter, Lauren, commented: “It’s better than being a pool boy.”

If I were, I’d have to be a kiddie pool boy, because that is where Lauren’s young daughters, Chloe and Lilly, like to frolic. Besides, on a maid’s salary, which amounts to exactly zero, it’s the only kind of pool I can afford.

Still, for the first four-plus decades of my marriage, I had been practically useless around the house. But ever since I retired several months ago, and especially now, during the quarantine, when Sue could see how good a job I do, I have aspired to be a centerfold in Good Housekeeping.

As I have told Sue, “A husband’s work is never done.”

And it takes a lot of it to keep our humble abode clean enough to pass the white glove test. Unfortunately, I don’t have a pair of white gloves, which would get ruined in the toilet anyway, so I use rubber ones. They keep my delicate hands smooth and young-looking.

Speaking of the toilet, I am flush with excitement to say that the bathroom is where I shine. Since the Ty-D-Bol man is no longer with us, I have taken his place, though I can’t fit a motor boat in the porcelain convenience. A good thing, too, because otherwise I’d go down the tubes.

Nonetheless, I do a sparkling job, if I do say so myself. Sue has said it as well, especially after I injured my back while bending down to clean the floor behind the toilet.

She wasn’t so happy when I used what I thought was an old toothbrush to scrub the chrome faucet on the sink.

“That was my new one!” Sue protested.

“Sorry,” I apologized. “Want to use mine?”

“No!” she shot back.

Picky, picky.

At least Sue never complains about my vacuuming, which leaves our carpets and rugs free of dirt, lint and whatever else gathers underfoot. Speaking of feet, I once caught my big toe in the vacuum cleaner while wearing flip-flops. Now I make sure to don heavier footwear.

Sue also likes how I dust, especially when I use the dusting wand to reach high places, where I don’t have friends but do have bookshelves and ceiling-fan blades.

“Let’s not get into a dust-up,” I once said.

“If you don’t watch out,” Sue replied, “unto dust you shall return.”

I sweep the kitchen floor (and try to sweep Sue off her feet), wash the dishes (dishes my life), iron clothes (I am, after all, a member of the press), clean windows (it’s a pane in the neck) and do just about everything else except laundry. That’s because Sue doesn’t trust me. She thinks I’ll either flood the place or break the washing machine.

“Life is a vicious cycle,” I told her.

“Pick up your dirty socks and underwear,” she said.

“Too bad I don’t have a little French maid’s dress,” I said. “You’d have to wash that, too.”

“If you clean the house, it’ll be worth it,” Sue said.

“I’ll go shopping for one tomorrow,” I said. “I hope there’s a sale on fishnet stockings.”

Copyright 2020 by Jerry Zezima

"A Pie-in-the-Sky Idea"

By Jerry Zezima

Hearst Connecticut Media Group

When the moon hits the sky like a big pizza pie, that’s a-boring.

And that’s why my wife, Sue, desperate for a diversion during the quarantine, asked me to help her make pizza.

“I’m bored out of my mind,” she explained, apparently not bothered by the fact that her husband, who has been driving her crazy while she’s been cooped up in the house all these weeks, has been out of his mind for the entire 42 years of our marriage.

Sue has made pizza before, and it’s always been delicious, but this was the first time she had asked me for a hand.

“How about two hands?” I offered.

Sue shook her head and said, “I have a feeling this is going to be a mistake.”

She had already taken out five pita breads that would substitute for pizza dough.

“I guess I can’t twirl them in the air like they do in pizzerias,” I said.

“Not unless you want to hit the ceiling fan,” replied Sue, pointing out that the fan was on and the bread would go flying across the kitchen and possibly hit me in the eye like a big pizza pie.

“That would be amore,” I said, snuggling up to Sue.

“Keep your mind on your work,” she ordered.

The work involved making five pies: tomato and basil; red and green peppers, onions, black olives and tomatoes; sausage, peppers and onions; sausage, peppers, onions and mushrooms; and sausage and mushrooms.

“I ran out of meatballs,” said Sue, who usually makes my favorite, meatballs and spinach.

“That’s Popeye’s favorite, too,” I pointed out.

Since Sue couldn’t roll her dough, she rolled her eyes.

“Make yourself useful,” she told me.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, afraid she would answer, “Get lost.”

She didn’t. Instead, she said, “Slice the olives.”

They were small and the knife was large, but I managed to succeed without slicing off a finger.

“That would be quite a topping, wouldn’t it?” I remarked.

Sue ignored it and said, “Now slice the tomatoes.”

I did, after which I sliced the mushrooms and some of the peppers and onions, the last of which, I said, “can make a grown man cry.”

Sue looked like she was about to burst into tears when I told her I would sprinkle the ingredients, which I had helped her brown in a pan on the stove, over the pita breads.

“I asked you to help, not take over,” Sue said as I also used a tablespoon to spread canned pizza sauce on the breads, which I then topped with, of course, the toppings.

“Now sprinkle on the cheese,” Sue said, handing me a bag of shredded Romano, a fistful of which I shoved, along with a few toppings, into my mouth.

“Stop eating the ingredients!” she commanded.

Finally, the five pizzas were ready to be put into the oven.

“They look good,” I said.

When they came out 20 minutes later, they tasted good.

“Yum!” I exclaimed as I stuffed my face with a slice of the pie with sausage, peppers and onions.

“It came out pretty well,” Sue said, adding: “These days I have nothing else to do but cook. I’m bored. I don’t know how I am going to retire.”

I’ve been retired for months; Sue, a teacher’s assistant, has been working remotely while school has been closed due to the pandemic.

“Maybe,” I suggested, “we can open our own pizza joint, with curbside service. I can see it now: Jerry and Sue’s.”

“Sue and Jerry’s,” Sue said. “And you can’t take over my creations.”

“All right,” I said as I took another bite. “But we do make a good pizza team. Any way you slice it.”

Copyright 2020 by Jerry Zezima

"Hollywood, Here We Come"

By Jerry Zezima

Hearst Connecticut Media Group

If you happen to be watching the next Oscars telecast, don’t be surprised if you see me up on the stage, holding a golden statuette, thanking the Academy, joking with Steven Spielberg and, in my best Sally Field voice, crying, “You like me! You really like me!”

Even though I can’t leave the house during this pandemic to do much more than take out the garbage, I’ve gone Hollywood.

My entertainment career began when, as a retiree who was bored out of my skull, which is empty anyway, I signed up to be an extra in movies and TV shows.

The casting agencies that get jobs for “background actors” (or, as we are known in the business, “talent,” which in my case is in short supply) started sending me notices about upcoming opportunities.

One was a gig in which I would have played a corpse in one of the 352 cop shows currently airing, streaming, crawling or whatever these programs do nowadays.

My wife, Sue, said I would be a natural. I wanted to take it as a compliment.

“I’d have to hold my breath for a long time,” I said. “I could end up being an actual corpse. But at least I’d be a star.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Sue responded.

I was scheduled to go for an interview in New York City with one of the agencies when the industry shut down, partly because of the quarantine and partly, I am sure, to prevent me from totally ruining show business.

But that didn’t stop me from pursuing my dream of rubbing shoulders with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, who would probably have me arrested for rubbing shoulders with them.

So I started making videos.

At first, I didn’t know what I was doing. At second, I didn’t know what I was doing. But as Ed Harris’ character said in “Apollo 13,” which was directed by Ron Howard, “Failure is not an option.”

(Ron, who was wonderfully sweet to my younger daughter, Lauren, when she worked at a coffee shop in Stamford, Connecticut, many years ago, is my fourth-favorite Hollywood Howard, the first three being Shemp, Moe and Curly.)

I used my cellphone to record the first of my “Quarantine Update” videos, this one about how poor Sue is stuck in the house with me and how we have passed the time by playing Scrabble. I was the screenwriter, the cinematographer, the director and, of course, the star.

I did the same on my next three videos (about relaxing in a hammock, cutting my own hair and taking a walk), but I enlisted Sue to direct my fifth video (about washing my hands).

All five videos are on YouTube, where they can be viewed by movie lovers who also are bored silly with the quarantine.

That includes Sue, a teacher’s assistant who has, with my directorial help, made several of her own videos for her school’s remote classroom lessons. She’s a natural. I’m an unnatural. Together, we could be Hollywood’s new power couple.

I can see us now, at the Academy Awards, strutting our stuff on the red carpet, Sue in a snazzy black tuxedo, me in a shimmering gown, smiling for the paparazzi and signing autographs for adoring fans.

My production company, DumbWorks, will get credit for the armload of Oscars Sue and I will take back to our PVC-gated mansion, where the statuettes will stand proudly on top of the refrigerator, which contains the beer we will drink to celebrate our success.

Even after the quarantine is over, we will continue to make videos because we are, after all, artists.

All right, Mr. Spielberg, I’m ready for my close-up.

Copyright 2020 by Jerry Zezima

"Here's the Dirt on Vegetables"

By Jerry Zezima

Hearst Connecticut Media Group

Jerry, Jerry, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

Not too well, unfortunately, because my green thumb is probably a fungus and my wife, Sue, is the real gardener in the family. I just provide the fertilizer.

But since the weather was nice and we wanted to get out of the house, where Sue has been stuck with me since the quarantine began, I decided to help start her garden, where she will grow all the vegetables I don’t like but have to eat anyway because, as Sue often tells me, “they’re good for you.”

To which I invariably reply, “I’m a vegetable myself. Isn’t that good enough?”

Apparently not, so Sue and I went to the landfill to get free topsoil.

“It’s even better than dirt cheap,” I said as I shoveled the stuff into two large lawn and garden bags, which weighed so much that lifting them into the car was a pain in the asparagus.

When we got home, I unloaded the loam, sweet loam and went to the shed, a dilapidated structure housing tools that, to call a spade a spade, I hate. That’s because they are dangerous weapons in my hands, which often bleed as a result, and are used to grow the vegetables I hate even more.

One of the tools I brought out looked like a spade, but Sue corrected me.

“That’s an ice chopper!” she said incredulously. “Wrong season. A lot you know about planting a garden.”

I knew enough to bring out more appropriate tools, including a shovel, a hoe, a leaf rake, an iron rake and a trowel.

I ripped open the bags of soil and dumped them into the garden, a small patch measuring 10 feet by 5 feet in which Sue planned to plant beets, onions, string beans, peppers, basil, cucumbers and, with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.

She also will grow tomatoes, which I like because botanically they aren’t vegetables but fruits, and squash, which I dislike more than anything that grows in nature with the possible exception of poison ivy, though it probably tastes better.

“Why don’t you like squash?” Sue asked.

“Because,” I replied, “I’d rather play tennis.”

Sue rolled her eyes, through which she noticed that I was standing there, a shovel in one hand, an iron rake in the other, like one half of the famous Grant Wood painting “American Gothic.”

“Are you the Farmer in the Dell?” Sue asked.

“I’m more like the Farmer in the Dull,” I responded.

Sue didn’t disagree.

“Or,” I added, “if you pickle the cucumbers, I’d be the Farmer in the Dill.”

Sue ignored the remark and said, “Last year, I had red hot chili peppers.”

“I must have missed the concert,” I noted.

“I put them in the freezer,” Sue said.

“I guess they’re not hot anymore,” I told her.

She told me to get going, which meant using the leaf rake to remove leftover autumn leaves, the shovel to dig up clumps of dead grass and the iron rake to spread out the dirt.

Then Sue got down and dirty as she planted rows of onion and beet seeds.

“Do you want me to help?” I asked. “I’ve gone to seed.”

Sue declined my generous offer but warned me to watch out for her chamomile flowers.

“The chamomile fits you to a tea,” I said.

“Too bad I can’t plant grapes,” Sue remarked. “I’d use them to make wine. After being out here with you, I need a glass.”

Still, it was a successful start to the garden, where Sue will grow all the greens that are supposedly good for me.

“Thanks,” I said as I put away the tools. “Now I can throw in the trowel.”

Copyright 2020 by Jerry Zezima

"Just What the Doctor Ordered"

By Jerry Zezima

Hearst Connecticut Media Group

If I have learned anything during this pandemic, aside from the fact that it’s extremely difficult to eat while wearing a face mask, making starvation another health risk, it’s that having a good doctor is very important.

I also have learned that it’s not a good idea to go to the doctor because you could get sick. Then, of course, you’d have to go to the doctor.

That’s why I was happy to see my doctor without having to leave the house.

I used my cellphone to have a virtual visit with Dr. M, which stands for mirth because he believes that laughter is the best medicine, not to mention the cheapest, even with a copay.

He proved it by telling me a joke that’s too risqué to repeat in a family newspaper. It involved dogs.

“You’re not even a veterinarian,” I told Dr. M.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It was a good joke.”

“Are you going to prescribe flea powder?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Just dog biscuits.”

“How do I look?” I wondered.

“Very healthy,” Dr. M said.

“I always look better from a distance,” I noted.

“Are you more than six feet away?” the good doctor asked.

“Try about three miles,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “That means you don’t have to wear a mask.”

“Should I stick out my tongue and say ‘ah’?” I wanted to know.

“Did you brush your teeth?” he asked.

“This morning,” I said. “Or was it yesterday morning?”

“Don’t bother,” said Dr. M, who told me that his medical assistant, Jennifer, was going to ask me some questions.

She popped up on the screen wearing a mask, through which she said, “Hi, Mr. Zezima.” Then she said, “How tall are you?”

“I’m sitting down, so I’m about 3-foot-8,” I replied.

“How tall are you when you’re standing up?” Jennifer asked.

“Six feet,” I said. “But I need a haircut, so I’m probably more like 6-5.”

“How much do you weigh?” Jennifer asked.

“I had a big lunch, so I feel like I’m 400 pounds,” I said. “Ordinarily, I’m 175.”

“How old are you?” Jennifer inquired.

“According to Social Security, I’m 66,” I said.

“You don’t look it,” said Jennifer.

“You mean I look even older?” I said. “I must be having a bad face day.”

“You’re a young man,” said Dr. M, who is older than I am.

I rolled up my sleeve, extended my arm and asked, “Are you going to take my blood pressure?”

“We haven’t figured out how to do that through the computer,” he said. “But you seem to have a pulse. How are you doing in this pandemic?”

“Fine, except I’m bothered by two things,” I said. “First, everyone tells me that everything I’m doing to stay safe is wrong. They think they’re all experts.”

“Tell them to call me,” said Dr. M. “What’s the other thing?”

“Those TV commercials for medicines that are supposed to help you, but they come with warnings about how bad they can be,” I said. “Some of the side effects include death.”

“If a medicine can kill you,” Dr. M said, “don’t take it. Water is good for you, but if you are under it, you can drown. If it’s too hot, it can kill you. If it’s too cold, it can kill you. Everything in moderation. Have a glass of red wine at dinner. It’s good for the heart.”

“You have a very good phone-side manner,” I said.

“Thank you,” Dr. M replied. “And I didn’t keep you waiting.”

“My time is not valuable,” I said, “but I appreciate it.”

“Stay healthy,” Dr. M said before signing off, “and you’ll always have the last laugh.”

Copyright 2020 by Jerry Zezima

"How to Wash Your Hands"

By Jerry Zezima

Hearst Connecticut Media Group

If, at the end of this pandemic, the world is hit with a biblical drought, which means there won’t be enough water to make beer, there will be only one person to blame.

That would be yours truly. And the reason is simple: I wash my hands approximately 147 times a day.

I also throw potentially contaminated jeans, pants, sweatpants, shirts, sweatshirts, T-shirts, boxer shorts, socks, pajamas, face masks, hand towels, bath towels, dish towels, dishcloths, washcloths, handkerchiefs and anything else made of a washable material in the laundry at a rate that will undoubtedly cause a flood during the rinse cycle and the washing machine to sink like the Titanic.

But doctors, nurses and other medical experts, who do not include politicians, even though some of them think they are, say it’s important to wash your hands. This not only kills germs, but it can dry out your hands so much that you need to keep washing them to get the moisture necessary to dry them out again.

I have washed my hands so often that I am convinced one of two things will happen: (a) they will fall off, in which case I will either starve to death or be known as Stumpy, or (b) my skin will become so leathery that I will be classified as a reptile, which will give my wife an excuse to say, “See you later, alligator,” or it will peel away in sheets and be used to make jackets, boots and whips, in which case I will be known as Kinky.

Still, handwashing is de rigueur mortis, a French phrase meaning “socially required dead skin.”

According to the aforementioned experts, and possibly the music industry, you should sing “Happy Birthday” to yourself twice while washing your hands. Unless you sing either too fast or too slowly, or can’t remember the lyrics, or even your own name, this will take 20 seconds, which is how long it takes to eradicate the germs.

But according to those very same experts, who just won’t shut up, most people wash their hands incorrectly because they don’t get enough soap between their fingers and under their nails.

Also, when you wash your hands, you are supposed to go all the way up to your elbows. The third or fourth time I did this, because I don’t catch on too quickly, it dawned on me that maybe I should roll up my sleeves.

But why stop at your elbows? Why not your armpits (which could probably use some soap) or your shoulders? Hell, why not strip naked and get in the shower? (Hint: Turn on the water or it won’t work.)

But here’s the real question: What if you wash your hands for only 19 seconds? I guess that means it won’t work, either, and you’ll have to begin all over again.

One good thing to come out of this, aside from the fact that I should get a birthday cake every day, is that I sing so badly that even if I were around people other than my wife, it would ensure six feet (and maybe six miles) of social distancing.

One of the bad things is that if you go out, you have to wear gloves to keep your hands clean, but when you take them off, you have to wash your hands again. And you’re not supposed to touch your face except, I suppose, to wash it, after which you should — that’s right — wash your hands.

So it’s a good idea to listen to the experts, even at the risk of creating a worldwide water shortage.

And after this pandemic is over, I am going to wash my hands of the whole damn thing.

Copyright 2020 by Jerry Zezima

"Look Who's Walking"

By Jerry Zezima

Hearst Connecticut Media Group

For years, countless people, many of whom I can’t count on, have told me to take a hike. Now that we’ve been quarantined in a house where social distancing is impossible, unless you stay in the bathroom all day, my wife, Sue, has been telling me to take one, too. 

So I recently went on what I thought would be a leisurely stroll with her and almost ended up being a dead man walking.

That’s because Sue is a power walker. I’m more like a Johnnie Walker. In fact, I should have scotched the walk as soon as it became apparent, approximately three yards into it, that I could never keep up without suffering some sort of cardiac event.

“It’s a nice day,” Sue said. “I need to get out or I’ll go stir crazy.”

“If you don’t stir anything,” I replied helpfully, “you won’t go crazy.”

Sue rolled her eyes and said, “Let’s go.”

And go we did, often at a pace that must have exceeded our neighborhood’s speed limit of 30 miles an hour.

“You’re going to get a ticket,” I yelled as Sue zipped down the street.

If this had been the Kentucky Derby, in which I’d be the back end of a horse, Sue would have won going away.

“I can’t keep up with you furlong,” I said to Sue, who either couldn’t hear me or refused to acknowledge the kind of remark that made her want to get out of the house in the first place.

Unlike racehorses, we weren’t running, though I would have had to sprint to keep up with Sue, whose legs are much shorter than mine but evidently work like pistons, whereas mine operate more like the hands of a broken clock.

I knew our jaunt was dangerous when I saw her blow through two stop signs.

“Is that the way you drive?” I shouted.

Sue jammed on the brakes and idled at a third stop sign so I could catch up.

“Thanks,” I said, gasping so violently that I was surprised I didn’t inhale a passing Chihuahua, which was walking with a larger dog and two human companions.

“Hello!” I chirped. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

They ignored me and kept going.

“They’re not practicing social distancing,” I told Sue.

“They’re probably married,” she responded.

“The dogs?” I said.

Sue sighed and said, “On the next leg, we’re going down this street and around the corner. Can you keep up?”

“If not, I’ll die trying,” I answered, having recovered enough to give up on the idea of pulling out my cellphone and calling 911.

Sue took off like a drag racer, which made me realize that behind every good woman is a man who’s about to have a heart attack.

I stopped in front of a nice Colonial, not just to catch my breath, which must have smelled awful, but to let the operator of an SUV make a left turn into his driveway.

“I didn’t want to collapse in front of your car,” I told the guy, who had rolled down his window.

“Then you would have been a speed bump,” he said with a smile as he pulled in.

I almost ended up being one anyway as I followed Sue, who was crossing the double yellow lines in the middle of the road. Cars that didn’t come near her seemed to be aiming for me.

I imagined my obituary: “Elderly man becomes roadkill.”

Finally, around the bend, what did I see? Our house! Sue, a former Girl Scout, stopped at the corner and helped me cross the street.

“We killed an hour,” she said.

“You almost killed me,” I replied.

Inside, I went to the refrigerator for a beer. It was the safest walk of the day.

Copyright 2020 by Jerry Zezima