"Narcissism 101"

By Jerry Zezima

Because my column is the greatest thing since sliced bread, which still is not as great as cold beer, I have as my special guest today Dr. Sigmund Fritz, bestselling author of the classic, iconic and highly questionable book “On the Fritz: How to Spot a Narcissist by the Greatest Psychoanalyst of All Time (and Don’t You Forget It).”

JZ: Welcome, Dr. Fritz.

SF: Thank you, Mr. Zezima. It is your honor and privilege to have me.

JZ: Your book, which has been praised by leading physicians as a cure for insomnia, focuses on narcissists. How do you spot one?

SF: Hit him with paintballs.

JZ: Huh?

SF: Just a little psycho humor there.

JZ: Very little.

SF: Seriously, a narcissist thinks he is better than everyone else.

JZ: Is he?

SF: No. Unless, of course, he’s me.

JZ: That goes without saying.

SF: Then don’t say it.

JZ: Can only men be narcissists?

SF: Certainly not. Women can be just as insufferable, although their hair is usually longer.

JZ: Are narcissists commonly found in positions of power?

SF: They often are, if you care to find them at all, but they also can be ordinary people with delusions of superiority. The list includes co-workers, neighbors, even family members.

JZ: It seems like narcissists are everywhere.

SF: Yes, thank goodness, or I’d be out of a job.

JZ: Why do narcissists think they’re so great?

SF: Because they are insecure. They put others down to build themselves up. Let’s say that another writer criticizes your column as being a blight on American journalism.

JZ: Is it?

SF: I wouldn’t go that far, but I’m sure it is appreciated by dog owners trying to housebreak their puppies.

JZ: More psycho humor?

SF: Sorry, I couldn’t help it. But back to the critic. He will put down your column to make his writing look better and more important, even if it is just as bad as yours.

JZ: That’s reassuring.

SF: And narcissists think they know more than anyone else.

JZ: You mean like all those annoying people who act like doctors, except they don’t have medical degrees, and tell you what’s good for you and what’s bad for you, even if they only see it online and end up being completely wrong?

SF: Right. Some of them think that just because they were psychology majors in college, they’re better than I am. Of course, no one is. That’s how delusional these people are.

JZ: How about people who like to give orders even if they’re not actually in charge of anything?

SF: There’s a specific and widely accepted psychological term for that kind of person.

JZ: What is it?

SF: Control freak.

JZ: How about people who really are in charge of things?

SF: You mean like captains of industry?

JZ: Yes. Or heads of state and other public officials.

SF: They bully others to feed their inflated but fragile egos.

JZ: What’s good ego food?

SF: Butter.

JZ: Why butter?

SF: So they can be buttered up. Get it?

JZ: I bet you drive your patients crazy.

SF: I do my best.

JZ: One last thing, Dr. Fritz, because I know you have to teach a class in Narcissism 101. What’s the best way to deal with narcissists?

SF: Ignore them. Worse than being rejected is being ignored. Say something profound, like: “I’d love to listen to more of your bloviating, but it’s time to clip my toenails.” Then walk away. It burns them up every time.

JZ: Thank you so much for your valuable time today, Dr. Fritz. You are, indeed, the greatest psychoanalyst of all time and the world’s foremost expert in narcissism.

SF: You’re very welcome, Mr. Zezima. I must modestly admit that I agree with everything you just said.

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima

"Ottomans Are a Real Trip"

By Jerry Zezima

There is an ottoman empire in our house. That’s because my wife, Sue, ordered yet another ottoman.

It was recently delivered and put in the family room to replace the old ottoman, which was not discarded but instead was pushed against the wall, making three ottomans (ottomen?) in the same room.

There’s another one in the living room.

And I have a footstool in my office.

I’m surprised there isn’t something I can rest my feet on in the bathroom.

If that weren’t enough, two of the four ottomans have storage areas where we keep approximately 150 blankets and, in the old unit, doggy toys.

A deep search might well uncover the remains of Jimmy Hoffa.

Ottomans should not be confused with hassocks, even though both have only added to my confusion.

The difference between an ottoman and a hassock is, of course, the spelling. And the fact that hassocks don’t have storage areas. Or legs.

Which makes them useless for anything except tripping over, as Dick Van Dyke famously did in the opening credits of his classic 1960s sitcom, although the one he had looks more like an ottoman. I told you I was confused.

At any rate, I replicated the feat — or, in my case, feet — when I regularly tripped over a hassock we used to have but mercifully got rid of years ago.

It was replaced by an ottoman. Then another. Then another. And now a fourth.

It’s enough to make me want a fifth, which would really have me tripping.

The old ottoman is the new repository of toys for our granddog, Opal, who knows her playthings are in there and wants me to get them out when she visits so I can chase her around the house and, ideally, do a Dick Van Dyke impersonation.

Also in there are old blankets that Sue would never think to throw out. She and I use newer blankets to cover our legs and feet when we put them up on our respective ottomans to watch TV.

The old ottoman was in front of Sue’s chair, which used to be my chair until she took it over and relegated me to the other family room chair, which is older than her chair and, naturally, not as nice.

There is an ottoman in front of my chair, but it doesn’t have a storage compartment, so I can’t stock it with beer when I watch sports.

It’s too bad because my chair is so deep and sunken and I am so old and decrepit that I can barely get out of it without rupturing a vital organ.

The new ottoman is in front of Sue’s chair and has a lovely green and white plaid pattern.

When it arrived in a large box that I had to lug inside, Sue and I took it out and screwed on the legs. The ottoman’s dimensions are 18 by 24 inches. It’s 17 inches deep with enough storage space for Opal, a Chihuahua, to use as a doghouse, a place I often figuratively find myself.

Instead, it’s stuffed with — you guessed it — blankets.

The only accessories in our house that outnumber blankets are pillows, which are scattered on chairs, couches and beds.

Some of them are on blankets that can’t, unfortunately, fit in either Sue’s or Opal’s ottoman.

I bet Sue will get a bright idea for pillow storage: another ottoman!

After that, she’ll buy two more to replace mine and the one in the living room. They don’t have room for blankets, pillows and doggy toys.

Inevitably, I’m afraid, Sue will purchase the largest ottoman she can find and put me in it. Then she’ll be the ruler of our ottoman empire.

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima

"I Am a Teenage Grandpa"

By Jerry Zezima

If you think your kids grow up fast, wait until you have grandchildren. I didn’t have to wait long for this revelation because my oldest grandchild is already a teenager.

If that weren’t enough, she and my four other grandkids are more mature than I am. It was true not only when I was their age — the youngest are 6-year-old twins — but, at 72, right now.

Thus have I discovered the fountain of youth: Immaturity. If you want to stay young, don’t grow up.

This means everyone else is getting old except me. That goes for my two daughters, the mothers of my grandchildren.

Every time you turn around, there’s another milestone, which is better than another kidney stone. I’ve had half a dozen of them.

My advice: Don’t turn around. And watch where you’re going.

But back to Lucky 13. I remember when I hit this landmark. At that age, only three things were important to me:

1) Sports.

2) Girls.

3) The Three Stooges.

Not necessarily in that order.

The day I became a teenager, my parents asked how I felt.

“I don’t feel any different,” I said, adding (to myself) that I was still the same dweeb I was the day before.

Then I went outside and threw snowballs (my birthday is in January) at cars.

Because I was the youngest kid in my class — the only time in my life that I had any class — I was 13 when I started high school.

On my first day, I got hopelessly lost, walking into the wrong classrooms and earning the snickers of the cool kids.

Every kid is teased — some, unfortunately, are bullied — in their teenage years. I found a way out of it: I was funnier than the other kids, who focused their jeers on my admittedly sizable proboscis.

My response: “My nose was this size when I was born. I couldn’t lift my head until I was 3 years old.”

It got big laughs. And it stopped the teasing. As a result, I became the class clown. It is an honor I wear proudly to this day.

I did a lot of dumb stuff when I was a teenager. Of course, I was young and stupid. I’m still doing a lot of dumb stuff, which means I’m now old and stupid. And because I’m a humor columnist, I’m actually getting paid for it.

Maybe I’m not so stupid after all.

I also was a teenager when I started college. I should have sued the people who made “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” the 1978 frat comedy starring John Belushi, for theft of intellectual property. If I won, I’d have to pay intellectual property tax.

That I graduated magna cum lager will give you some idea of my collegiate career.

As with my teachers in high school, where I was in the principal’s office so often that I could have been charged rent, my college professors couldn’t wait to get rid of me.

By then I was 21, my teenage years behind me, at least from the neck down. From the neck up, I continue to have the mind of a class clown.

My wife, Sue, who was my classmate in both high school and college, will verify it.

Now we have a teenage grandchild. It might make other grandparents feel old, but I have felt — for, ironically, the past 13 years — that you have to be young to be a grandparent. If you aren’t, being a grandparent will make you young again.

This explains why I have always been my grandchildren’s favorite toy.

So happy 13th birthday to my granddaughter, with lots of love from one teenager to another.

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima

"Taking It to Heart"

By Jerry Zezima

It does my heart good to know that my heart is in the right place (right now it’s in my office, where I am, too) and that I don’t need open-heart surgery.

That’s why I was happy to have a heart-to-heart talk with a very nice ultrasound technician named Emily, who gave me an echocardiogram. It showed, among other things, that I am able to fire off dumb remarks in a heartbeat.

I had the test to see if my aortic aneurysm, which was discovered a year and a half ago, had grown to the size of a colorful balloon with cartoon hearts and the words “Get well soon!”

A cardiac surgeon said I needed an operation, but he called me the day before the scheduled surgery to say a scan showed the aneurysm wasn’t of sufficient size for such an invasive procedure after all. The news made my heart flutter.

“We can treat it with medication,” he said.

That includes, I like to think, red wine, which I consider over-the-counter heart medicine.

Still, I have to go for follow-up exams. The most recent one was the echocardiogram.

Accompanying me for moral support was my wife, Sue, a cardiac patient herself who has summoned the strength not only to keep me alive, but to rotate her eyeballs, multiple times a day, at my dumb remarks.

“Do you have to give me more than one cardiogram?” I asked Emily.

“No,” she replied. “Why?”

“Because,” I said, “it’s an echo.”

Both Emily and Sue rotated their eyeballs.

After I gave Emily the shirt off my back, she asked me to lie down on a padded sonography table.

“I am going to put stickers on your chest,” she said.

“Are they smiley stickers?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Those are extra.”

The stickers were connected to wires that made me feel like a car battery in need of a jump. They would allow Emily to monitor my heart rate and rhythm.

Then she instructed me to lie on my left side with my back toward her.

“Put your right arm on your right thigh,” Emily said. “And put your left arm under your head.”

“It sounds like I’m doing the Hokey Pokey,” I said.

“Without the music,” she added.

“Maybe I’ll fall asleep,” I said.

“Don’t snore,” said Sue, who is used to my overnight rumblings.

Emily used a wand (not magic because I didn’t disappear) to go over my chest, side, throat and stomach.

The result:

1) I had a heartbeat.

2) I wasn’t pregnant.

During the procedure, in which Emily used an acoustic gel that was spread with the wand, I heard a loud squishy sound.

“Was that me?” I asked.

“Yes,” she reported.

“Sorry,” I said. “When you get to be this age, these things happen.”

Emily and Sue rotated their eyeballs again.

When Emily ran the wand over my throat, she said, “Keep your chin up.”

“I always do,” I said. “Then I walk into a wall.”

More ocular twirling.

When she was finished, Emily took my blood pressure and pronounced it “perfect.” Then she said I could put my shirt back on.

“How is my aneurysm?” I asked.

“You’ll have to ask the cardiologist,” she said.

So I did.

“It’s about the same,” said Dr. Rohit Maini. “You have good numbers, so you still don’t need surgery.”

He walked me and Sue to the front desk.

“Are you checking out?” the receptionist asked me.

“Not for a long time,” I answered.

“Six months,” Dr. Maini said.

“You’re giving me six months?” I spluttered. “I want a second opinion.”

“No,” he said with a smile. “I’ll see you again in six months.”

“Thanks, doc,” I said. “It does my heart, but not Sue’s eyeballs, a world of good.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima