"A Sound Idea for Deterring Scammers"

By Jerry Zezima

I don’t want to toot my own horn — that’s because I can’t play the tuba and tooting is rude, especially at the dinner table — but I have come up with a brilliant way to get rid of all those irritating scammers who call me every day, at all hours, especially when I am at the dinner table.

I bought an air horn and successfully used it on a real estate agent who called to ask, not for the first time, if I wanted to sell my house.

Her ears, if not her phone, must still be ringing.

I was moved to desperation after getting approximately 11,248 calls in the span of a week and a half, not only from real estate agents, but from relentless idiots trying to pass themselves off as bankers (“Your loan has been approved”), auto insurance reps (“We are calling about your car’s extended warranty”), even IRS agents (“Pay now or face the consequences”), most of whom speak a language that is not English and seem to be calling from: (a) their basement, (b) Tibet or (c) another planet.

I tried everything to fend off these hateful scammers.

One morning, the house phone rang. When I picked up, a telemarketer said, “Is Mrs. Zezima there?”

“No, she isn’t,” I answered.

“Are you Mr. Zezima?” he inquired.

“No,” I replied. “I’m a burglar. Make it fast. I have to get out of this house before the cops get here.”

He hung up and never called again.

I pulled the same kind of stunt recently when my mother was in the hospital. The phone in her room rang. It was, I swear to God, someone who wanted to sell her health insurance.

“This is Dr. Zezima,” I said. “I’m about to perform brain surgery, but I have an opening this afternoon, so I can operate on you, too. Do you have health insurance?”

The woman hung up.

A little while later, my mother’s room phone rang again. This time it was a man who wanted to sell her health insurance.

“I’m Sgt. Zezima of the police department,” I informed him. “We are tracing this call.”

The guy hung up.

My mother was vastly amused because laughter is, of course, the best medicine. And the cheapest. She is now out of the hospital and doing well.

My wife, Sue, and I routinely get calls from scammers who keep calling if we don’t pick up and won’t shut up if we do.

Some are downright nasty.

Two can play at this game, I figured, so I came up with what I thought was a stroke of genius: I would buy an air horn and use it on the next scammer.

“This is one of the dumbest ideas you have ever had,” Sue told me.

Undeterred, I went online and spent a grand total of $7.99 for an air horn. It arrived a couple of days later.

“Powerful sound blast,” it said on the package. “Alert for safety and distress. Meets U.S. Coast Guard requirements for boats up to 65 feet.”

I tested it out in the kitchen. Sue practically ricocheted off the ceiling.

“You almost blew my eardrums out!” she cried.

To which I replied, “What?”

The next day, the house phone rang. I picked up. A woman whose voice sounded familiar asked if I wanted to sell my house.

“Stop calling!” I demanded.

She kept talking.

So I put my air horn next to the phone and let loose.

I imagined the wax shooting like molten lava out of her ear.

“Are you there?” I asked.

No answer. She had hung up.

It worked!

“I guess it wasn’t such a dumb idea after all,” Sue admitted.

“Thanks,” I replied. “Now I have good reason to toot my own horn.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"If the Slippers Fit, Buy Them"

By Jerry Zezima

I am a human Bigfoot. I am taking the bold step of admitting this for two unsettling reasons: 

1. My feet seem to be getting bigger.

2. The most fashionable shoes I own are a brand-new pair of slippers.

The alarming increase in the length, width and overall size of my already tremendous tootsies was evident when I purchased the aforementioned soft and comfy footwear, which I wear not just around the house, but to throw out the garbage, get the mail and, if I am too lazy to put on sneakers, run errands in.

Speaking of sneakers, for most of my adult life, which according to many people has yet to begin, I have worn size 11. But when I purchased the pair before the ones I currently wear, I found out that my feet had widened and that I am now, fittingly, size 11 wide.

Last year, when I bought a pair of slides to replace the faded rubber ones I had been wearing since the second Bush administration, I found that I needed size 13 because my feet had apparently ballooned to the dimension of dinghies.

“Do they come with oars?” I asked a young sales associate.

“No,” he said.

“Will I need a boating license?” I wondered.

“Not unless you wear them in the water,” he answered, adding that slides — like every kind of footwear, including sneakers and, yes, slippers — run a little small.

I didn’t even bother to ask how they could run if I wasn’t in them.

Now I have purchased a new pair of slippers because the old ones look like a couple of deceased wolverines.

My wife, Sue, who thinks I have the ugliest feet on earth and is not shy about saying so, went to a store to buy slippers for me because they would be cheaper than the ones I wanted to order from the catalogue of a national clothing chain.

“They’re $80!” she protested. “I can get you the same pair for $24 and save at least half that with my store coupons.”

My wife, God bless her, would spare no expense for me!

I was feeling good about the financial windfall when Sue came home with a pair of slippers that were size 10-11.

I tried them on. Or, rather, I tried to try them on, but I couldn’t jam in my colossal dogs without cutting off the blood flow to my lower extremities.

And this was with my bare feet. I wear socks with slippers when I am going on an important mission to pick up pizza or Chinese food.

The next day I put on my sneakers and went to the store with Sue to exchange the slippers for the next size, which was 12-13.

Not only that, but I wanted to make sure the pair I got were fashionable. That means they had to be tan — I like a neutral color that will go with pajamas or sweatpants, part of my geezer ensemble — and not have laces.

Laces on slippers are stupid because they look terrible and, even worse, don’t stay tied. Plus, they do nothing to help the slippers fit properly.

“It looks like my feet are growing,” I told a nice salesperson named Theresa.

“What size do you usually wear?” she asked.

“Eleven,” I said.

“These slippers cover two sizes,” Theresa explained. “If the 10-11s are too small, you’ll need 12-13s.”

I brought my ratty old slippers for comparison.

“They’ve seen better days,” Theresa acknowledged.

“Put them back in the bag,” Sue whispered to me. “They smell.”

I took the 12-13s, which fit like gloves (maybe I can wear them on my hands, too), and was amazed at the savings we got with Sue’s coupons.

“Do you like your new slippers?” she asked when we got home.

“They’re priceless,” I said. “And now I’ll really be fashionable when I take out the garbage.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima

"No Run-of-the-Treadmill Machine"

By Jerry Zezima

For a guy who has often been told to take a hike, I am getting nowhere fast. That’s because I have gone back to the gym, after taking a breather for several weeks, only to discover that you need to be a rocket scientist to use the new treadmills.

The old machines were like me: simple, serviceable, a little outdated, nothing fancy, with moving parts that didn’t move as well as they used to, made suspicious noises when they did move and breathed a sigh of relief when they mercifully stopped moving.

But I needed to get back on track — or on tread — so I returned with absolutely no fanfare and saw that the shiny, sophisticated new machines belonged on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

“Do you need a degree in calculus to operate these things?” I asked a smart staffer named Maddox.

“Sometimes,” he answered. “It took me a couple of weeks.”

It was saying something considering that Maddox, who has grown up with modern technology, is 20 years old.

“I’m Generation Z,” he said.

“Nice to meet you,” I replied. “I’m Preparation H.”

“What’s your goal here?” Maddox asked.

“Not to leave in the back of an ambulance,” I said, adding that my cardiologist wants me to do cardio exercises.

“The treadmill is good for that,” said Maddox.

“I’m told that walking is the best kind of exercise, but I don’t get anywhere on the treadmill,” I said. “If I walk outside, I’d cover a lot of ground, but I could also get run over by a car or bitten by a dog.”

“You don’t have to worry about cars or dogs at the gym,” Maddox noted.

“But I do have to worry about not being able to operate these new treadmills,” I said.

The biggest problem is with the programs, which include 5k, 10k, Fat Burn, Rolling Hills, Manual Spring 8, Target HR, Incline, Interval Speed and Fitness Test.

“I don’t know what they mean, but I hope Fitness Test is easier than an algebra test,” I said.

“Are you bad at math?” Maddox asked.

“Yes,” I said. “And I have the checkbook to prove it.”

“Don’t worry, the treadmill does the counting for you,” said Maddox. “Do you know how to turn it on?”

“Sure,” I said. “Whisper sweet nothings into the screen. That’ll turn it on.”

Maddox pointed to an electronic button.

“I suppose I’ll have to put one foot in front of the other,” I said.

“That would help,” he replied. “You can see how miles per hour you are going, how many calories you are burning and what your heart rate is.”

I set the speed at 1 mph because, naturally, I didn’t want to get a ticket. I also didn’t want to collapse, be pulled under the running belt and come back out flattened like a flounder.

I soon found that 1 mph was slow even by my pathetic physical standards, so I doubled the speed, increased the incline and walked briskly while staying in the same spot — and sounding like an asthmatic mountain goat — for 10 minutes.

By the time I stopped, I had traveled, loosely speaking, a quarter of a mile. I also had burned 29 calories. And my heart rate, which started at 70, went all the way up to 93.

“I have a pulse,” I told Maddox.

“It looks like,” he said. “It also looks like you’ve gotten the hang of the treadmill. You mastered it faster than I did.”

“And I’m not even a rocket scientist,” I said. “But I am a geezer, so I don’t want to overdo it. When I get home, I’ll walk to the refrigerator for a beer. Then I’ll really be getting somewhere.”

Copyright 2025 by Jerry Zezima