"How to Pack for a Trip"

By Jerry Zezima

I’m a guy who likes to travel the world. Unfortunately, I can do so only if I sit in front of the TV and watch celebrities like Stanley Tucci eat and drink their way through Italy and other exotic lands while the most thrilling places I visit are Home Depot and Costco.

And they don’t even have postcards.

Still, I have been on enough car excursions, including a recent one to Vermont to attend a college reunion, to pass along my valuable tips on how to pack for a trip.

Tip No. 1: Have someplace to go.

I am often told where to go, but it’s hot enough here. That’s why it helps if you have an actual destination where you will spend at least one night. This means you will need a suitcase or a bag that must be filled with clothes, toiletries and other items, one of which — probably your toothbrush — you are required, by federal law, to forget.

Tip No. 2: Decide how long you want to be away.

It’s better to decide this for yourself instead of leaving it up to a judge, in which case you won’t have to pack at all.

At any rate, the longer you will be somewhere, the longer you will need to figure out how much to bring. This could entail stuffing practically your entire wardrobe into a suitcase heavy enough to make TSA agents suspect there is a dead body in there.

Tip No. 3: Check the weather.

This is the most important part of planning a trip because you need to know if it will be sunny, rainy, hot, cold or any combination of meteorological conditions. This means you may have to pack both shorts and jeans, T-shirts and sweats, skivvies and pajamas, bathing suits and parkas.

Oh, what the hell, just bring them all.

When my wife, Sue, and I went to Vermont, we checked the forecast and saw that we needed to prepare for practically every kind of weather. Even though we would be there for only a weekend, rain was in the forecast for the first day, with warm temperatures in the afternoon and chilly temps in the evening.

The second day was supposed to be hot, with storm clouds early and sunny skies later.

So we packed clothes for every occasion, including outfits for the alumni dinner. In my case, that meant bringing a sport jacket, a button-down shirt, khakis and nice shoes.

Sue had to bring a dress and nice shoes.

Other footwear included sneakers, slides, slippers and sandals, which had to go in separate bags.

Whenever Sue and I visit our older daughter and her family, who live 300 miles away, we stay for a week, which means we have to pack enough clothes to make it look like we are going on a world cruise.

“Maybe we can get our own travel show!” I told Sue the last time we went.

“Don’t forget your toothbrush,” she replied.

Tip No. 4: Bring extra underwear.

If you are old or you remember your mother’s admonition to wear clean underwear in case you are in an accident, you will understand.

Tip No. 5: Don’t throw your back out while loading the car.

This can easily happen while you are hoisting heavy suitcases and bags into the trunk or cargo area. Such an injury will make the drive excruciating and possibly lead to an accident, in which case your underwear won’t be clean.

Tip No. 6: Enjoy your vacation!

By day two, you won’t care what you are wearing and will long to get home, where it will take you approximately 12 minutes to unpack everything and sink into a chair with a cocktail.

It would also be nice if you got a postcard from Stanley Tucci.

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"Getting the Bugs Out"

By Jerry Zezima

I live in a wasp neighborhood. At least that’s the buzz from a couple of exterminators who came over on separate occasions to rid the house and property of all the pests that creep my wife out.

Sue, who says I’m the biggest pest of all, routinely roams the premises with a flyswatter and calls the extermination company if she sees even one little gnat.

This time she was in the living room when she saw a wasp, which she smashed, and then spotted a couple of bees trying to get in the front window.

“Two bees or not two bees?” I said dramatically. “That is the question.”

“You’re a pest,” Sue responded.

So she called an exterminator.

“Bug spray won’t work on your husband,” a pest technician named Sean told Sue. “But it will get rid of the bees and wasps.”

He took me outside — for inspection, not extermination — and showed me a bunch of holes in the ground.

“They aren’t ant holes,” Sean said. “They’re wasp holes.”

“I could never do your job because I wouldn’t know an ant from a hole in the ground,” I admitted.

“Ants and wasps are what people complain about the most,” said Sean, who dropped granules that he said would get rid of the insects.

“May I try?” I asked.

“Sure,” he agreed.

“I guess I could do your job after all,” I said after going over a small patch of the backyard with a spreader.

But I wasn’t allowed to use the sprayer, which released an insecticide from a nozzle that was attached by a hose to a backpack.

“I’ll do the perimeter of the house and spray around the first-floor windows,” said Sean, who also used a long brush to dust eaves for spiders and other home invaders.

“Has your family bugged you about getting rid of bugs in your house?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Sean said. “But they will.”

Sue didn’t bug me because all the bugs in our house had been eradicated. Or so we thought.

A couple of weeks later, she saw a spider in the bathroom. Then she saw a bee in the kitchen.

“I’m calling the bug guy again,” Sue said.

This time it was a certified service professional named Alex.

He repeated what Sean did and added that he would also spray for ticks.

“Do you know what kind of ticks don’t bite?” I asked.

“What?” Alex said.

“Nervous ticks,” I announced proudly.

Alex laughed and said, “I like dad jokes!”

“Are you a dad?” I asked.

“No,” Alex answered. “I live with my mom.”

“Does she bug you about getting rid of bugs in your house?” I wondered.

“Yes,” he said. “She’s always after me. I bring my job home with me.”

Like Sean, who used to work as a roofer but quit because he’s afraid of heights, Alex likes being an exterminator.

“I used to be a telemarketer,” he said. “That was no fun. Most people think telemarketers are even worse than insects.”

He also worked in a big-box store but quit because he had to be there at 4:15 in the morning.

“Then I worked in a car dealership,” Alex said. “I was the guy behind the computer in the service department.”

Now he gets satisfaction in helping customers keep their home and property free of pests.

“What’s the biggest bug you have to deal with?” I inquired.

“Spider crickets,” Alex said. “They jump at you instead of away from you.”

“My wife says I’m the biggest pest in the house,” I said.

“Too many dad jokes?” he asked Sue.

“They never end,” she replied.

I proved her right when I thanked Alex and said, “If we see any more bees and wasps, we’ll give you a buzz.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"Sorry, Wrong Number"

By Jerry Zezima

If Alexander Graham Bell, who is credited with patenting the first telephone, were alive today, he’d be:

(a) On hold.

(b) Getting relentless calls about his car’s extended warranty.

(c) Convinced that my new smartphone has a dumb owner.

The correct answer is:

(d) All of the above.

At least Bell has the good sense not to call me — and not just because he has been dead since 1922.

But if he did call, I’d tell him about the hangups my wife, Sue, and I recently had when we traded in our old phones for the latest models, which now allow us to fall even further behind our grandchildren in technological aptitude.

I didn’t think I needed a new phone because nobody wants to talk with me. But my previous device, an iPhone 13, kept losing power and had to be recharged so I wouldn’t miss important messages from scammers and spammers, who ought to be in slammers.

I went to the phone store and explained the situation to Tushar, the very nice, smart and  — this is essential in dealing with me — patient office manager.

He looked at my phone and said, “Your battery is OK.”

“That’s what my doctor told me,” I replied.

“Still,” Tushar said, “you should consider getting a new phone. This one is old.”

“My wife’s phone is even older,” I said. “It’s an iPhone 12.”

“You both need an upgrade,” suggested Tushar.

Thus did Sue and I bring our hopelessly out-of-date devices to the phone store to exchange them for up-to-date iPhone 16 models that not only have all the bells and whistles, which are annoying as hell, but enable us to receive incessant pitches from telemarketers who can be easily blocked but not, unfortunately, electrocuted because there is, as yet, no “zap” button on the new phones.

But a problem soon developed: The transaction wouldn’t go through.

“We can’t process your payment,” Tushar said after taking credit card information from Sue, who is the family banker.

“Does that mean the phones are free?” I asked hopefully.

“It means we are charging you more,” Tushar replied with a sly smile.

He explained that a new office device was down because of a software glitch.

“There are pros and cons to everything,” he said. “Connectivity brings us closer, yet we’re far apart.”

Even with the help of the “support team,” it took four days to solve the problem.

For the inconvenience, Tushar waived the activation fee.

“You should charge the company an inactivation fee,” I suggested.

Complicating matters was a frustrating but entirely predictable human issue: Neither Sue nor I could remember key passwords that were needed for Tushar to do whatever he had to do once the software mess was fixed.

So we had to make up new passwords (I forget what they are) before deciding what color phones we wanted.

After intense deliberation, I chose teal.

“That’s the color of my phone,” said Tushar.

“You are my inspiration,” I told him.

“As long as I’m not your perspiration,” he said.

Sue picked purple.

Then we had to choose colors for the tablet and the watch that came with the deal.

“I don’t wear a watch, so I’ll take the tablet in blue,” I said.

Sue picked cream for her watch.

Unfortunately, there was another issue: My phone was delivered to the house, but Sue’s phone wasn’t. Neither were the tablet and the watch.

“The one who does not pay bills got a phone and the who does pay bills did not,” Tushar said when Sue and I returned to the store.

Eventually, everything worked out, all the devices were delivered, and Sue and I are finally up to date.

I only hope that wherever he is, Alexander Graham Bell is getting relentless calls about his car’s extended warranty.

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima