"No Ignoring All My Snoring"

By Jerry Zezima

As a man who can’t stay awake for the 11 o’clock news, which isn’t worth watching anyway, I tire easily. Then I fall asleep. And I snore with enough force to wake up not only the dead, who sleep pretty soundly, but also my wife, who would like to kill me.

So I got a CPAP machine, which was supposed to cure my sleep apnea. Stupidly, which is how I do almost everything, I used it only a few times and put it in my closet.

After the machine sat there for several weeks, I had to return it to the diagnostics company. That’s because the insurance company, whose rates keep me awake at night, would no longer pay for a contraption that got more rest than I did.

I stopped using the sleep machine because — spoiler alert — I couldn’t sleep.

Also, I had to take off the mask that shot air up my nose if I needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. This happens so frequently that it should be called the Geezer 5K.

According to my doctors — primary care physician, cardiologist, cardiac surgeon and, of course, sleep specialist — the machine was good for my heart, an organ that works tirelessly and is kept going, in my case, with medication and red wine.

The machine also provided much-needed air to my brain, an irony not lost on me because I am, medically speaking, an airhead.

Realizing I had made a colossally dumb mistake, I called the sleep center for another CPAP machine. To get one, I had to participate in a second sleep study, which entailed staying overnight in a hospital.

So a technician could monitor my brain and cardiac activity, I was hooked up with more wires than the electrical grid of New Zealand.

The results were sent to Dr. Mohammad Amin, the specialist who ordered my first CPAP machine.

“The second time will be the charm,” he said. “But make sure you use it. Your wife will appreciate it. Wives are more sensitive to snoring than men.”

That statement was confirmed by Devin Moncayo, the respiratory technician who gave me my first CPAP machine.

“My mom was really tired of my dad’s snoring, so he got a machine a few years ago,” he said.

“How is it working out?” I asked.

“Great,” Devin replied. “They both sleep very well.”

“Do you see a lot of people like me who come back to get another machine because they stopped using it the first time?” I wondered.

“Not too many,” he said. “But I do see people who left their machine in a cab or forgot to bring it back from a trip.”

“Maybe they were sleepwalking,” I suggested.

Devin said the people at the diagnostics company aren’t sleeping on the job because they can monitor the operation of a CPAP machine.

“There’s a built-in modem that tells them if you are using it,” he said.

“If I don’t, the machine falls asleep, right?” I wondered.

“Yes,” said Devin. “And it doesn’t snore.”

He gave me a second machine along with a nasal pillow, which sends air into my nostrils, and a full mask, which covers my nose and mouth.

“Good luck this time,” he said. “I hope you and your wife sleep well.”

Neither Sue nor I got much rest the first night because I used the mask, a clear plastic face covering that was connected to the machine with a long tube. I looked like a deep-sea diver.

“It sounded like you were drowning,” Sue said the next morning.

That night, I used the nasal pillow.

“You didn’t snore at all,” she reported.

Since no noise is good news, I have used it ever since. And the extra air to my brain has helped me realize that the machine works like a dream.

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima

"Take Two Pills and Keep Smiling"

By Jerry Zezima

Medicine commercials give me a headache. Unfortunately, I have to pay attention to them because their products can either: (a) relieve my headache or (b) kill me.

So I strike a compromise: Whenever one of these pitches comes on the TV screen, which happens approximately once a minute, I turn down the sound.

I can’t bear to listen as the announcer announces that the side effects for the prescription medication in question can include gastric distress, swelling of the earlobes, neck pain, body odor, dandruff or bad breath.

After that, I am warned not to operate heavy machinery, which puts the kibosh on my plans to buy a steamroller.

And that’s all before I lapse into a coma.

Then the announcer says, “Ask your doctor.”

So I did.

“Do patients ask you about the medications in those TV commercials?” I asked Dr. Sanjay Sangwan, my primary care physician.

“Yes,” he answered. “With 90% of them, there’s a mutual understanding about what’s right for them. But 10% tell me what they want.”

“What do you tell them if the medicine they want isn’t right for them?” I wondered.

“Find another doctor,” said Dr. Sangwan.

“You have me on baby aspirin because I’m a big baby, right?” I said.

“You said it, not me,” the doctor said.

“And I’m on blood pressure medication and a statin, but they won’t give me hives or ingrown toenails, will they?” I inquired.

“No,” Dr. Sangwan assured me.

“But I still shouldn’t operate heavy machinery, correct?” I said.

“You can operate it,” Dr. Sangwan said. “But don’t try to lift it.”

He added that what’s really confusing about the medications in TV commercials are their names.

“I don’t know where the drug companies come up with them,” Dr. Sangwan said.

“They have a lot of Q’s, X’s and Z’s, but not many vowels,” I noted, suggesting that a couple of them could be named after me: Jerryflu (“It’s something to sneeze at”) and Zezempic (“For people with fat heads”).

The medications I take helped me achieve perfect scores for blood pressure, blood oxygen, heart rate and temperature.

“I have vital vitals,” I pointed out.

“That’s vital,” Dr. Sangwan agreed.

“How come I don’t have to take my clothes off?” I asked. “I used to strip down to my skivvies during a physical.”

“Who wants to see your flowered underwear?” Dr. Sangwan said. “Maybe your wife does.”

“Not really,” I said. “She has to wash them.”

“You don’t have to undress anymore because bloodwork can give a lot of information,” explained Dr. Sangwan, who asked me to lift my shirt so he could listen to my heart and lungs with a stethoscope. He also looked in my mouth and asked me to say, “Ah!”

“There’s one word I’m glad I no longer have to hear,” I said.

“What’s that?” the doctor asked.

“Cough,” I replied.

“You’re in excellent shape, especially for a guy who’s 72,” said Dr. Sangwan, who not only is excellent himself but, at 54, is the first doctor I have ever had who’s younger than I am.

I told him about my mother, who’s 101 and still going strong.

“Most old people are women,” he said. “I had a female patient who was 99. I said, ‘I hope to see you next year.’ She said, ‘You look pretty healthy. I bet you’ll make it.’ I hope she’s right. Men don’t live that long.”

When we talked about my job as a newspaper columnist, Dr. Sangwan said, “You’re a dying breed.”

“Dying?” I spluttered.

“Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly. “You’re doing very well.”

“So I don’t have to take any of those medications that can kill me?” I asked.

“No,” Dr. Sangwan said with a smile. “Keep your sense of humor. And remember that laughter is the best medicine.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima

"Game of Groans"

By Jerry Zezima

With apologies to Frank Sinatra, who is dead and can’t sue me, I am the chairman of the board. And I’m not just singing my own praises.

After decades of failing miserably at board games, one of which had such a monopoly on me that I went directly to jail, I am game to announce that I recently emerged triumphant in not one but two exciting games of bingo.

Best of all, I dethroned my mother, Rosina, who at 101 years old is a bona fide bingo champion.

Mom doesn’t employ gamesmanship, or even gameswomanship, but she did use talent, experience and a bit of luck to win so many bingo games when she was in a rehab facility that she was asked to give everyone else a chance.

“In other words,” explained Mom, “they didn’t want me to play anymore.”

Now she is back home, where I found myself competing with her in a big bingo bash.

The odds were against me, even though I am very odd, because of my inglorious history of losing at board and card games.

Over the years, I have suffered defeat at the hands of friends, neighbors, children and grandchildren, as well as my wife, Sue, and, of course, my mother.

Sue’s late grandmother regularly beat me in Scrabble, but only because she was still alive at the time. When my two daughters were in grade school, they beat me, too.

When I played Sue, I cheated by making up words. And I still lost.

I have been crushed in Candy Land by my grandchildren, which was sweet justice. They have also trounced me in Monopoly, thus accounting for my status as a jailbird.

Because I have a checkered past, I have lost in — you guessed it! — chess.

No, sorry, I mean checkers. That other board game has given me chess pains.

I suffered my greatest humiliation when I was beaten in a blackjack tournament by my dog.

In each game, I dealt Lizzie two cards, one up, the other down, and asked, “Hit?” or “Stay?” She gave me her paw to indicate which one she wanted.

To make a long story even more pathetic, we won nine games each. In the deciding game, Lizzie stayed at 20. I had 17. I took a card. It was a jack. I busted. Lizzie won.

After that, I refused to play her in Scrabble.

I even tried to get on “Wheel of Fortune” but bombed on the test, thus saving letter-perfect Vanna White and then-host Pat Sajak the shame of having me on the show.

But this latest competition, with defending champ Mom in bingo, broke my losing streak.

Also playing were Marilyn, one of my mother’s caring and giving caregivers, and my sister Susan.

Each of us got a card with “BINGO” across the top and 25 numbers, five across and down. We also got a bunch of colored chips. Mom was the caller.

She spun the roller cage containing the bingo balls and called out, “B-6.”

I had it.

“Do you know what comes before B-5?” I asked.

“What?” Mom wondered.

“B-4,” I announced.

Everyone groaned.

It went on like this for the entire game, until Mom called, “I-16.”

“Bingo!” I shouted, completing my diagonal sweep.

I was the new champ.

“Let’s play another game,” Mom said, looking to take back her crown.

“You’re on,” I responded, rising (or, rather, sitting) to the challenge.

We all got new cards, but I won again when Mom called, “G-53.”

“Bingo!” I shouted.

I was close to winning the third game, needing just one more letter-and-number combo, but Susan shouted, “Bingo!”

Just like that, my winning streak was over.

“I hope,” Mom said, “you don’t have to wait until you’re 101 to be a bingo champ again.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima

"See You Later, Refrigerator"

By Jerry Zezima

The only thing that left me cold when my wife and I got a new refrigerator is that it didn’t come stocked with beer.

But the cool part is that it doesn’t freeze food, as our old fridge did. And it is designed in such a convenient way that I can now find what I am looking for — pickles, mustard or, yes, beer — which I could never do before, even when it was staring me in the face.

Sue and I realized we needed a new fridge when we discovered ice chunks in the milk. Also, the water in a plastic bottle was frozen solid. If there was something in the back of the refrigerator, especially on the top shelf, it likely looked like it had spent a year in a meat locker, even if it wasn’t meat.

The real problem was that the fridge was only seven years old. And it didn’t have a warranty, which was, of course, chilling.

So we called a technician named Nadir, who checked the thermostat and said, “It’s 26 degrees. The temperature should be 34.”

“The thermostat was replaced four years ago, when the refrigerator was three years old,” Sue said.

“And,” I added unhelpfully, “we had to pay cold cash.”

Nadir figured out that fixing the problem, which would involve replacing the thermostat and the compressor, wouldn’t be worth the expense.

“You should just buy a new refrigerator,” he said.

“Would it help me find things in there?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Nadir. “My wife complains that I can’t find anything in our refrigerator. I guess it’s a guy thing.”

“It sure is,” said Sue. “Jerry can’t even find the pickles.”

“That’s why I’m always in a pickle,” I acknowledged. “At least I can find the beer.”

What I had to find next was a new fridge. So Sue and I went to an appliance store and met a super salesman named Tevin Quirk.

“We must be related,” I told him. “I have a lot of quirks.”

In a moving display of devotion, Sue did not disagree. She also said that because of an overhead cabinet, the fridge couldn’t be taller than 66 inches.

“And I want handles on the doors,” she said.

“If we can’t open them, we’ll starve to death,” I noted.

“The refrigerator has to be stainless steel,” said Sue, who gave me credit for the brilliant deduction that it would match our stainless steel sink and dishwasher.

“Can you find anything in your refrigerator?” I asked Tevin.

“No,” he confessed. “My girlfriend is always on me about it.”

“How about beer?” I wondered.

“I can definitely find that,” he said.

Tevin scheduled the new fridge, along with the air conditioner and mattress he also sold to us, to be delivered a few days later.

That’s when Giorgi and Zura drove up in a truck containing the brand-new appliance, the sight of which shocked me because it looked green.

“It’s stainless steel,” Sue said.

“It’s green,” I insisted.

“That’s the plastic covering,” Sue said with a sigh. “When it’s peeled off, you’ll see that the refrigerator is stainless steel.”

But something else was wrong.

“I thought this refrigerator came with beer in it,” I said.

“It’ll be delivered later,” Giorgi deadpanned.

“Can you guys find anything in your refrigerators?” I asked. “My wife says I can’t.”

“Neither one of us is married,” Zura said.

“When we are, I guess we’ll find out,” Giorgi added.

After they left, Sue stocked the new fridge. The shelves are neatly arranged with fresh food and liquids such as milk and juice, as well as leftovers. Condiments are on the side of the door.

“It’s a different setup, so you can find things more easily,” she told me. “And now they’re not frozen.”

I celebrated with a beer, which I found right away.

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima