"A Lean, Mean Sleeping Machine"

By Jerry Zezima

When a guy tells incredibly stupid jokes during the day and emits window-rattling snores at night, his wife could not be blamed for telling him to keep his mouth shut.

That is why my wife, Sue, was thrilled to hear that a respiratory technician told me the same thing.

“Keep your mouth shut,” said Devin Moncayo, who was giving me a demonstration of the CPAP machine I would be taking home to stop my snoring.

“My wife has been telling me that for years,” I said. “And not just at night.”

Keeping my mouth open — in addition to potentially attracting nesting animals such as moths, birds and, God forbid, bears — is the main reason I have sleep apnea.

I was diagnosed with the disorder earlier this year after two things happened: (a) Sue complained that my snoring was not only keeping her awake but registering on the Richter scale and (b) I spent a night in a hospital to take part in a sleep study.

It was determined that I have a moderate form of apnea and should get a CPAP machine, which would stop my snoring by shooting air into my nostrils and filling my brain, or what’s left of it, with the oxygen it hadn’t been getting while I was asleep.

This explained not only my snoring but, to use sophisticated medical terminology, my complete idiocy.

So I had to spend another night in the same hospital to test out a CPAP machine, which I would be getting in a couple of weeks.

Sure enough, within that very same time frame, I got an email saying I should pick up the machine.

That’s when I met Devin, who gave me a brief tutorial on how to use the CPAP, which, in Russian, stands for Snap Crackle And Pop.

In English, it stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure.

“The machine comes in two parts,” Devin said. “There’s a humidifier tank that should be cleaned once a week with Dawn.”

“I don’t know who she is,” I admitted. “And don’t tell my wife about her.”

“I mean Dawn dishwashing liquid,” Devin explained. “You have to rinse the tank thoroughly, then fill it with filtered water.”

“If I don’t, will bubbles come out my nose?” I asked.

“Possibly,” Devin answered. “I’m sure they would keep your wife awake, too.”

The second part of the machine, which is the size of a clock radio and can be placed on a nightstand, is the nose pillow, which would be attached to a tube connected to the CPAP and go into my nostrils.

“You’ll have to breathe through your nose,” said Devin, who added that I should keep my mouth shut or I would start snoring again.

“Do you use a CPAP machine?” I wondered.

“No,” said Devin, who is 24 and lives with his parents. “But my father does. He used to snore pretty badly. The walls shook. It kept my mom up at night, so he got the machine two or three years ago and he hasn’t snored since.”

“Does your mother snore?” I inquired.

“No,” Devin said. “Most women don’t.”

“My wife sometimes does,” I told him. “But I guess it’s like the purring of a kitten compared to my lion-like snores.”

“Take the machine home and your wife will be very grateful,” Devin promised.

That night, I hooked it up, kissed Sue nighty-night, stuck the nose pillow in my nostrils, turned on the CPAP and drifted off into dreamland.

The next morning, Sue reported that I didn’t snore.

“You did,” I said. “Maybe you should use the machine.”

“Forget it,” she replied.

The following night, as an experiment, I slept without the CPAP. Again, I didn’t snore.

“I guess I don’t need it after all,” I said.

“I don’t care if you use it or not,” Sue said. “As long as you don’t keep me up.”

“Just to make sure,” I said, “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"Going, Going, Not Yet Gone"

By Jerry Zezima

I would say that my wife and I have an open door policy in our house, but it takes us so long to leave the premises that we have to close the door or flies will get in.

No matter where we are going, either together or separately, we need a list of things to remember or it will take us more time to go out than it will to come back.

Here is the list Sue and I follow whenever one of us is about to go to the store, go to the gym or just go crazy.

BATHROOM

It is no coincidence that this is No. 1.

You’d think it wouldn’t be an issue to anyone except a child, who must constantly be asked if he or she has to go before leaving the house, but when you get to be a certain age (old), you become like a kid again.

That’s when you start wondering if the place where you are going has a public restroom.

Sometimes Sue or I will come back home if we have more than one place to go because we couldn’t hold it if our errands entailed multiple stops.

Me: You’re back already?

Sue: I have to go to the bathroom.

Me: You went before you left.

Sue: I had three cups of coffee. And I have two more stops to make.

At this stage of life, you find yourself going from bladder to worse.

PHONE

This is what delays departures more than anything else, including the call of nature.

It happens in one of two ways:

1) You are asked by your beloved where her phone is, to which you respond, “I don’t know.” Then an all-out search ensues. It culminates when you call her number and the phone rings in: (a) another room, (b) the chair in front of the TV or (c) her pocketbook.

2) Your beloved exits the house, walks to the car, opens the door, gets in, closes the door, opens it again, gets out and comes back inside to announce: “I forgot my phone.”

Very often, you have to go through the first scenario again.

If you plan to go out, you will receive a call from the person who previously forgot her phone to ask if you can pick up a bottle of wine or go to the post office.

On the way out, you realize you left your phone on the kitchen counter.

KEYS

“Do you have your keys?” I ask Sue every day as she is about to leave for the gym.

“If I didn’t have them, I couldn’t start the car,” she invariably responds.

The problem is deciding where she will put them while she is on the treadmill. This takes some time to figure out — her leggings don’t have pockets — and leads to the following related delay.

CLOTHING

Depending on the weather forecast, it will be hard to decide what to wear. This is where I waste more time than Sue because, if it’s raining, I’ll have to look in the closet for a windbreaker or, if it’s cold, a fleece.

Sue does the same thing, but she will think more in terms of style.

“I don’t want to go out looking like I just rolled out of bed,” she will say.

“You’re going to the gym,” I will helpfully point out.

“I may go to the store afterward,” she’ll reply.

“Do you have your phone?”

“Goodbye, dear.”

SHOPPING LIST

If you’re going to the store, you need to know what to buy. That’s why, like the phone, the list is frequently forgotten and must be retrieved so the person who plans to go out can actually leave.

Before you do, however, it’s a good idea to go to the bathroom.

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"All Quiet on the Restful Front"

By Jerry Zezima

When it comes to getting a good night’s sleep, no snooze is bad news. At least it is for my wife, Sue, who claims she is often kept awake by my snoring, which she once said makes me sound — this is a direct quote — “like Mount Vesuvius.”

“This means,” I helpfully pointed out, “that I have been disturbing your sleep for 2,000 years.”

“It sure seems that long,” Sue said with a yawn.

To prevent further eruptions, I am getting a CPAP machine, which will, I hope, discourage Sue from solving the problem herself by means of suffocation.

Instead of a pillow over my face, I’ll don a mask that will send oxygen up my nose or into my mouth with continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, which is one of the most common treatments for sleep apnea.

I was diagnosed earlier this year with a moderate form of the disorder, which is characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep.

“The result is less bad breath,” I told Sue, trying to put a positive spin on my nighttime noise.

“Go brush your teeth,” she responded. “And face the other way.”

I did both when I participated in a sleep study that required me to spend the night in a hospital while Sue slept peacefully at home.

A very nice technician named Raminder hooked me up with enough wires to fry a hippo, put a flow sensor under my nose and said nighty-night.

The next morning I went home, bright-tailed and bushy-eyed.

A couple of weeks later I met with Dr. Mohammad Amin, who said the oxygen level in my brain was low.

“That wouldn’t surprise my wife,” I said.

“You should get a CPAP machine,” Dr. Amin suggested.

Before that could happen, however, I had to go back to the hospital for another overnight stay, this time with the machine.

Raminder was again my sleep technician.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” I told her.

“What would your wife say?” she asked.

“She’d say thank you for giving her some peace and quiet,” I replied.

Before covering me with electrodes, bands and sensors, Raminder showed me the CPAP machine, which was the size of a clock radio and sat on a table next to my bed.

She explained that I could wear three kinds of masks: a nasal mask (over the nose), a nasal pillow (under the nose) and a full mask (over the nose and mouth).

“You should start with the nasal mask,” Raminder said. “We have three sizes: small, medium and large.”

“Which one will I get?” I asked.

“Large,” Raminder answered diplomatically.

She put the mask over my generous proboscis, hooked it up to a tube leading to the machine and turned out the light.

Cool air gently wafted into my nasal passages, but I had a tough time falling asleep because I wasn’t used to it. Eventually I dozed off, but I awoke a short time later when Raminder came into the room.

“You have a leak,” she said.

Indeed, air was jetting out of the side of the nasal mask. The problem was fixed, but I woke up after an hour or two and asked for the full mask, which worked better but was more uncomfortable.

Still, I got a decent night’s sleep.

When morning came, Raminder said I did well with both masks and that it takes time to get used to the machine.

“Once you get it,” she said, adding that I would have to wait for two or three weeks, “you will sleep a lot better and you won’t snore.”

When I got home, I told Sue the good news.

“I won’t sound like Mount Vesuvius anymore,” I said.

“If that machine works,” she said, “it will be a dream come true.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"Not-So-Hot Stuff"

By Jerry Zezima

Because I’m a guy who likes to be clean and fresh — my wife would raise a stink if I weren’t — I get burned up by showers that leave me cold.

That’s what happened one morning when I took a shower in water so absolutely freezing that it could have sent a polar bear into cardiac arrest.

So we called the heating company to send somebody over to fix the furnace, which at that point worked about as well as a cheap cigarette lighter.

“You have sludge,” said a personable technician named Connor.

“I’m old,” I explained. “What about the furnace?”

“It has sludge, too,” he replied.

“What’s the answer?” I asked.

“A new oil tank,” Connor answered.

Our present tank, which sits above ground on the side of the house, is 19 years old. It replaced the previous tank, which was underground and started leaking oil a week before our older daughter’s bridal shower, which was held in the backyard.

“The tank was dug up, which made the side yard look like a war zone, and was temporarily replaced by an old, rusted, above-ground tank that we festooned with balloons and a sign saying, ‘Congratulations!’ This was in full view of the guests,” I told Connor.

“Your daughter must have been thrilled,” he said.

“She was very tankful,” I joked.

Connor smiled and said, “The average lifespan of the tank you have now is about 20 years. You don’t have to replace it right away, but the cold water problem will happen again if you don’t.”

In the meantime, the furnace needed to be cleaned. While he was doing the dirty work, Connor told me about the time he was held up at gunpoint at a gas station while getting fuel for a customer in the middle of the night.

“It was 2 a.m. and I was filling jerry cans with diesel for a customer who ran out of oil,” he recalled.

“I call my bathroom the Jerry can,” I said.

“Anyway,” Connor continued, “this guy came up to me with a gun, but I could see it wasn’t loaded.”

“Was he?” I inquired.

“Definitely,” Connor said. “Then along came his friend. They were working together, so the guy with the gun shooed him away, like he was saving me. He said it was his birthday and he wanted to go inside to buy some Four Loko, which is a drink with booze in it, but he didn’t have any money and wanted me to give him some so he could celebrate. He pointed the gun at me, but I knew it was empty, so I said forget it and the guy walked away. The night shift was very interesting.”

So is the day shift because Connor, who’s 27 and has been on the job for four years, gets to meet customers like the guy who called to complain about a foul odor.

“I knew he had a pretty bad leak because I could smell it from the front yard,” Connor said. “Pressurized oil was going into the soil.”
“Hey, that rhymes!” I noted.

“I used a vacuum and a barrel straw to suck out 300 gallons,” he said. “It took two and a half hours. The guy reeked, too.”

“He probably needed a shower,” I said. “Did he have hot water?”

“Yes,” Connor said. “And now so do you.”

He replaced two filters and one strainer in the furnace, which fired up and was running smoothly once again.

“At least you didn’t blame me for having to take a cold shower,” Connor said. “A lot of customers do.”

“My wife will be happy you fixed the problem,” I said.

“Tell her you helped,” Connor said, “and she won’t blame you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “This is the only time being in hot water won’t get me in hot water.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"The Light's On, but Nobody's Home"

By Jerry Zezima

I am a lightheaded homeowner who knows that a house is not a home unless there is something to do. And there always is.

That’s why I want to buy — with the approval of the bank, the federal government and, most important, my wife — a lighthouse.

I admit that I am not the likeliest owner of one of these sea sentinels for two reasons: (a) they require a lot of work and I am the least handy man in America and (b) they require a lot of money and my mortgage would end up, fittingly, underwater.

But that did not stop me from entering an auction for the Penfield Reef Lighthouse, an 1874 Second Empire-style historic structure situated off of Fairfield, Connecticut, in Long Island Sound.

The property, which features a 51-foot octagonal light tower atop a two-story keeper’s quarters, is accessible only by boat.

It’s another reason why I wouldn’t be a good lighthouse owner: I have a boat, but it’s small, plastic and is kept in my bathtub.

Still, I could not resist the lure of a nautical adventure that would make Johnny Depp jealous.

But first I had to run the idea past my wife, Sue, who is the captain of the family.

“I want to buy a lighthouse,” I told her.

“Why?” she asked.

“So I can be the star of the next ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie,” I replied.

“Right now you could be the star of the next ‘Money Pit’ movie,” Sue said.

“There’s an auction for a lighthouse and I want to put in a bid,” I explained. “What’s our limit?”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” she replied. “Go have fun. But just don’t win it.”

I went online and saw that the bidding started at $100,000.

“I’m going to come up short,” I told Paul Hughes, a public affairs officer for the General Services Administration, which was conducting the auction.

“Looks like,” replied Hughes. “But if you’re the least handy man in America, you definitely don’t want to win. The GSA has lighthouses throughout the country, including the Great Lakes, and they all need a significant amount of work. They’re not pristine, move-in ready. Not even TLC will help.”

“Does TLC stand for total lighthouse care?” I asked.

“You could say that,” said Hughes, adding that he’s a homeowner who is “OK, not great, at being handy. I couldn’t own a lighthouse, either.”

“Do you get calls from real estate people who want to buy your house?” I asked.

“All the time,” Hughes answered.

“My wife and I do, too,” I said. “The first time someone asked if we wanted to sell our house, I told him that he would have to drag my cold, dead body out of here. Then I said that if we did sell, we’d have nowhere to go, so I asked if we could live with him.”

“What did he say?” Hughes wanted to know.

“Nothing,” I replied. “He hung up.”

“If you bought a lighthouse,” Hughes pointed out, “you’d have someplace to go.”

“And my wife would tell me where to go,” I predicted.

“I guess she wouldn’t approve,” he said.

“She says I don’t do enough around our own house,” I replied.

Hughes said it’s “a labor of love” to preserve history and that the GSA tries to give historic lighthouses to conservation groups, towns or museums. But if there is no interest, the lighthouses are put up for auction.

Not surprisingly, my measly bid of 25 grand didn’t come close to buying the Penfield Light, which went to the undisclosed winner for $370,000.

“It’s all for the best,” I told Sue, who was very relieved. “How could I take care of a lighthouse when I can’t even change a lightbulb?”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima