"Stupid Crook Tricks"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

Time now for another exciting episode of Stupid Crook Tricks, the hard-hitting series that presents actual cases of bumbling incompetence by some of the most inept criminal masterminds in America.

All of these stories are true. The names have been eliminated to protect the dumb, de-dumb-dumb, dumb, de-dumb-dumb-duuuumb.

I am especially proud of the current crop of crooks because they are essentially hometown boys gone bad.

I realized there might be a local connection when I read a recent story in The Stamford Advocate about a couple of idiots who called a bank in Fairfield to say that they were coming to rob the place.

Noelle Frampton of the Connecticut Post reported that the dimwitted duo asked for a bag containing $100,000 in large bills. Naturally, bank officials alerted the cops, who were waiting for the pathetic pair and arrested them when they showed up to collect the loot.

“I would classify these individuals as not too bright,” said Sgt. James Perez, Fairfield police spokesman. “They should have spent time in school instead of trying to rob a bank.”

This got me wondering whether stupid crooks have ever struck my hometown of Stamford. To find out, I called two sources in the Stamford Police Department whose identities I cannot reveal except to say that they are Assistant Chief Jon Fontneau, a former neighbor of mine, and Capt. Richard Conklin, both of whom have been on the force for nearly 30 years and have pretty much seen it all.

Fontneau, who was commander of the narcotics and organized crime unit before being promoted to assistant chief earlier this year, recalled one young man who not only had a long rap sheet for dealing dope but was, of course, a dope himself.

“We were on Stillwater Avenue looking for guys with warrants,” Fontneau said. “Even though we were in an unmarked car, the vehicle was like a heat-seeking missile because it was well known to just about everybody who’s a bad guy. Not only that, but we were wearing jackets that said ‘POLICE’ in large letters on the sleeves and on the front and back. This kid waved us down, jumped in the backseat and asked if we wanted to buy drugs. Then he said, ‘Hey, you guys look like cops!’ Maybe it was the police raid jackets that tipped him off.”

Then there was the marijuana moron who tried to hide his stash under a rock in front of police headquarters.

“It was on Stamford Historical Society property,” Fontneau remembered. “A couple of society employees saw this guy, who was on his way to the courthouse for a drug case, put something under a rock. They went outside, lifted the rock, found marijuana and called us. The irony is that the narcotics unit overlooks the property. Sgt. Chris Gioielli went out and put a note under the rock saying, ‘You are under arrest. Look up at the police station.’ We watched the kid come back and lift the rock. He looked perplexed. He read the note and looked up at the department. Two officers exited headquarters, walked over and arrested him.

“His father was aghast,” Fontneau continued. “He claimed police planted the drugs. He said, ‘I know my son has done some bad things, but I didn’t raise him to be this dumb.’ You can’t make this stuff up.”

Conklin didn’t make up the story of the bumbling burglar who lost his case because he tried to drink it.

“He broke into a home, looked around and found the liquor cabinet,” Conklin recalled. “So he started to imbibe. Eventually, he passed out. The owners of the house came home, saw the place had been broken into and heard this guy snoring loudly. It was a very easy case to solve.”

Both Conklin and Fontneau had other stories that will have to wait until the next exciting episode of Stupid Crook Tricks.

“We always say thank goodness for stupid crooks,” Conklin said. “They make our jobs a lot easier.”

Copyright 2010 by Jerry Zezima

"The Dog Listener"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

I may be an expert in animal husbandry because I am a husband with a lot of animals, but I am going to the dogs. That’s because my wife, Sue, thinks our dog, Lizzie, is a better listener than I am.

I thought I heard Sue say so after I read about an Associated Press-Petside.com poll in which a third of married women said their pets are better listeners than their husbands.

Most of those women said that dogs listen better than cats (we have three cats and they’re even denser than I am), but the wives added that both animal species are preferable to men when it comes to paying attention to whatever it is that wives are saying.

I told Sue that the poll was unfair because Lizzie’s ears are longer than mine, but Sue didn’t want to hear it. So I called my neighbor Alan Christiansen, aka the Dog Listener, for a consultation.

Alan is a professional dog trainer and the owner of Dog Gone Good (nydogtrainer.com), a Long Island-based company that caters to canines. Even though Alan is not a doctor, he makes house calls so he can teach basic obedience to a clueless man’s best friend.

“Men don’t have a habit of listening,” Alan said during a recent visit. “Dogs do.” Lizzie, who was listening to every word, kissed Alan.

“Lizzie used to be a better listener,” Sue said, “but she’s old now and I think she’s getting a little deaf.” Lizzie, who will be 15 in July, ignored the remark.

“Dogs tend to take on the traits of their owners,” Alan said, “so maybe she’s taking after Jerry.”

“That could explain it,” Sue noted.

“What?” I said.

Alan, who is 64, first made a connection with dogs when he was a boy.

“I was one of six children and my mom would save everything,” he recalled. “She even saved the grease from cooking and used it to make soap for the laundry. Little did I know that my clothes smelled like hamburgers. All the dogs in the neighborhood would follow me. They must have been thinking, ‘This guy smells great!’ I just thought they liked me because I was a nice kid.”

Alan has had many dogs, as both pets and clients, ever since.

“One of my customers was a lady who had a French poodle,” Alan said. “She wanted to know if she should speak French to the dog.”

“I speak French to Lizzie,” I told Alan. “When she’s standing by the door, I ask her if she has to go oui oui.”

Another customer used to fly her dog in a private jet and wanted to know where on the plane would be the best place for the pooch to sleep.

“I told her anyplace but the cockpit,” Alan said.

“Lizzie sleeps in the backseat when I drive her in the C-A-R,” I said, adding that I couldn’t pronounce the word without setting off Lizzie in a frenzy of excitement.

“Maybe I could teach her how to spell,” Alan offered.

I politely declined.

Alan doesn’t have a dog now, but he and his wife, Phyllis, often baby-sit for Franklin, their son’s miniature long-haired dachshund.

“He drinks only Poland Spring water,” Alan said. “If we give him any other kind, he’ll turn up his nose.”

“Franklin is a classy guy,” said Phyllis, who calls herself the Dog Rescuer because she rounds up all the dogs that neighborhood kids let loose. Then she returns them. “They come to me,” Phyllis said. “And they listen better than Alan.”

“Do you think dogs are better listeners than husbands?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Phyllis answered. “But after 27 years, you learn to live with it.”

“Otherwise,” Alan said, “I’d really be in the doghouse.”

Copyright 2010 by Jerry Zezima

"Leaving on a Jet Plane"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

My bag was packed, I was ready to go, for the first time I was flying solo, I was leaving on a jet plane, and though I knew when I’d be back again, oh, baby, I hated to go.

As revised lyrics from the famous song played over and over in what little remained of my mind, my wife, Sue, drove me to LaGuardia Airport in New York recently for the first solo flight of my life. I felt like a little kid being dropped off at the bus stop for his first day of kindergarten.

“Bye, Mommy!” I said to Sue as I walked toward the terminal. I was headed to Dayton, Ohio, hometown of the Wright brothers, who at least had each other (and didn’t have to pay extra for their bags) when they flew for the first time more than a century ago.

My destination was the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, named for the great humorist who was born and raised in the Dayton area and didn’t wait until she was 56 to start accumulating frequent flier miles.

“This is my first time flying solo,” I told a nice woman named Meghan, who was reading The Stamford Advocate while waiting for her flight to Wilmington, N.C.

Meghan, who is originally from Stamford and now lives in New Canaan, said, “Maybe you’ll get a column out of it.”

I knew I would after I somehow managed to get on the right plane and overheard Tracy, our flight attendant, talking with a woman seated behind me. The woman wanted Tracy’s job. Tracy warned her about rude passengers, then got into a discussion about her love life and finished with a dissertation on Victoria’s Secret intimate apparel.

“Now,” said Clay, a businessman who sat next to me, “you know Tracy’s life story.”

Next came one of the great thrills of my life: Someone was actually waiting for me in the Dayton airport, holding a sign with my name on it.

“You’re not a federal agent, are you?” I asked.

“No,” said Molly, a pleasant, middle-age woman. “I’m here to get you a ride to the hotel.”

I felt like a VIP (Very Idiotic Passenger).

When I said I was flying solo for the first time, she said, “Tell your wife that Molly took over for her.”

Gary, my driver, gave me the grand tour, even taking a detour so I could see downtown Dayton. “It’ll take two or three minutes,” he said.

“You mean I’m going from the City That Never Sleeps to the City That Never Wakes?” I asked.

“Almost,” said Gary, a proud native Daytonian, as we passed the Wright Brothers Flyover Sculpture on Main Street.

The town was terrific. So was the University of Dayton, Erma’s alma mater, which hosted the biennial conference.

On the way home, I waged a protracted battle with a kiosk at the airport. A lovely couple named Anne and Doug, who live in Dayton and were headed to Florida, helped me figure it out.

“Sometimes you want to kick these things,” Doug noted. Anne invited me to stay with them the next time I’m in Dayton.

As I took off my shoes in the screening area, I told an employee named Tammy that I was flying solo for the first time. “Do you want an escort?” she asked.

Reva, a fellow passenger, said, “I’ll take care of you.”

My plane landed in Philadelphia and I got on the connecting flight to Islip (“Iceland?” someone wondered), where Sue picked me up.

“Mommy! Mommy!” I squealed.

“How was your trip?” Sue asked as she drove me home.

I told her about the fantastic conference and all the nice people I had met. Later, like a kindergartner home from his first day of school, I took a nap.

Copyright 2010 by Jerry Zezima

"A Man for All Seasons"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

I am a man for all seasons. Unfortunately, except for Frankie Valli, I often get the four seasons mixed up. That’s why I am doing my fall cleanup in the spring.

As a homeowner who doesn’t actually own my home (the bank does, although it kindly allows me to pay the mortgage), I have to rake leaves, cut grass, shovel snow and do other chores I can’t afford to pay someone else to do because I am paying the bank, which won’t send over a customer service specialist to do them for me.

Now I am in the middle of raking leaves that fell last fall, which is called fall because you will fall into the leaves that fell in the fall and will not feel fine after you have fallen.

It’s like the biblical story of the loaves and the fishes, except I call it the leaves and the flushes because after you rake up one pile of leaves, two more will miraculously appear, whereupon you will flush and fall into the leaves, possibly coming down with a nasty case of poison oak.

Speaking of oaks, I would like to poison the ones in my yard. As a Connecticut Yankee by birth and raising, I used to love these majestic trees, not just because of the story of the Charter Oak, in which the state constitution was hidden until it was eaten by squirrels, but because of the beauty of the leaves that fell into other people’s yards every fall.

Now that I have my own house, I hate oaks. According to statistics that must be true or I wouldn’t have made them up, one oak tree can drop 17 million acorns. I have half a dozen oaks on my property. When you do the math (17 million times six), this amounts to a hell of a lot of acorns.

Unfortunately, the squirrels can’t keep up, either because Henry, one of our three cats, likes to eat them (the squirrels, not the acorns) or because they (the squirrels, not the cats) are on a diet.

To compound matters, in the spring, oaks drop brown stuff that stains cars, clogs gutters and litters yards. This is Mother Nature’s way of saying that if you have somehow managed to get rid of the leaves and acorns in the fall, you are still not out of the woods because you will have to clean up in the spring, too.

Speaking of Mother Nature, she helped me out a couple of years ago by getting rid of one of our oaks. Unfortunately, she dropped it on the house of our next-door neighbors. At least they got free firewood.

The worst thing about oaks is that they are supposedly the strongest trees, but even after a mild breeze blows through, the yard is covered with twigs and branches that must be picked up before you can rake leaves or cut the grass.

And speaking of grass, it can’t be cut if it doesn’t grow. This is the case in our yard, which looks like I manicured it with a flamethrower. The secret to growing grass is to spread fertilizer. As readers of this column know, that is my specialty.

But I can’t do this until I get rid of the leaves and acorns from last fall. I am doing it myself because it will save me a lot of money I could spend on something more important, like beer.

In fact, I have come up with a foolproof system for yard work. The proof is that a fool came up with it: (a) buy beer, (b) drink it, (c) repeat until the job is done.

At this rate, I’ll have all those leaves and acorns cleaned up by next fall.

Copyright 2010 by Jerry Zezima

"Father-of-the-Bridal Registry"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

Now that I am starring in my own sequel to “Father of the Bride,” I have decided to take advantage of a perk I didn’t know about the first time by opening a father-of-the-bridal registry.

I got the idea after talking with Bridget, who works at a bridal registry in a large department store.

“Men often feel excluded because the emphasis is, of course, on the bride, as well as the mother of the bride,” Bridget said. “So I always say that if it weren’t for the father of the bride, there would be no bride.”

“And then the whole wedding industry would collapse,” I noted. “So I guess we guys are pretty important.”

“Don’t tell your daughter or your wife,” Bridget said, “but we couldn’t do it without you.”

That’s what she told one father whose two daughters were getting married within six months of each other.

“He came in and I could tell he was stressed,” Bridget recalled. “So he just decided to buy all the china for both daughters. I said to him, ‘You are The Man!’ That seemed to please him. Then I said, ‘Let me make sure you get a free vegetable bowl.’ It made his day.”

Bridget, who said she loves working with her clients because they are there for a happy reason, especially likes fathers of the bride.

“A guy will walk in with his daughter and his wife and his daughter’s fiance,” Bridget said. “I can tell the father is a tagalong who was forced into coming. So I’ll extend my hand and say, ‘Congratulations. Now all I need is your checkbook.’ Then I’ll say, ‘What does it matter? It’s only money. Look at your beautiful daughter.’ That softens them. I like to make fathers feel involved. After all, they’re paying for everything.”

Still, many fathers, as well as their future sons-in-law, are often clueless when it comes to items in a bridal registry.

“Some guys have no idea,” Bridget said. “I have to tell them, ‘With flatware, you eat. With stemware, you drink.’ They don’t know.”

Since the emphasis is always on the bride, I asked, “Where can a guy go to open a registry?”

Bridget answered, “Home Depot.”

So I went to the nearest store and spoke with Larry, who has been father of the bride twice.

“Yes,” Larry said, “you can open a registry here.”

Instead of china, which the store doesn’t carry anyway, Larry suggested a cordless drill (“not for dentistry,” he said), a circular saw and a tool kit.

“They’ll make any guy feel special,” said Larry, adding that the items are less expensive than most things in a bridal registry.

“The drill and the saw together are only $99,” he said. “And the tool kit, which includes pliers, a hammer and a screwdriver, is only $22.”

As a practical joke on one of his daughters when she was getting married and had a registry at a department store, Larry said, “I told her to go in and ask for Doozy pots. The woman at the registry was Italian, like I am, and she told my daughter that ‘doozy’ means ‘crazy.’ My daughter came home and wanted to kill me.”

Both weddings were wonderful, Larry said, though he added that neither of his sons-in-law had a registry at Home Depot. “One is an electrician who already had plenty of tools,” Larry explained. “But it’s a good idea for a lot of guys.”

“What’s the most valuable tool a guy can have in his registry?” I asked.

“A screwdriver,” Larry said. “Of course, when the bills come in, you’ll need another kind of screwdriver. But we don’t sell those here.”

Copyright 2010 by Jerry Zezima

"Hello Deli"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

“From New York, the greatest city in the world, it’s the ‘Late Show With David Letterman.’ With Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra. And Dave’s special guests, Sue and Jerry Zezima!”

Announcer Alan Kalter of Stamford didn’t actually say that last part in his introduction during a recent taping of “Late Show” at the Ed Sullivan Theater. But my wife, Sue, and I were in the audience because Sue won a couple of tickets in a contest by correctly guessing Kalter’s hair color: red.

We were required to be there several hours before the taping, so we had a lot of time to kill. Trying to find something to do in the city that never sleeps, we had lunch at the Hello Deli, which is around the corner from the theater.

“Hi!” said the smiling man behind the counter. “What would you like?”

It was none other than Rupert Jee, who owns the Hello Deli and is a celebrity in his own right for his many appearances on the show.

The hoagies were named after the program’s regulars, so I ordered the top choice. “I’ll have the Letterman,” I said.

As Elios, one of the deli’s four employees, made my lunch, which consisted of ham, cheese, turkey, sweet peppers, mayonnaise, oil and vinegar on a roll, I asked Rupert if Dave likes the hoagie that’s named after him.

“He used to eat it, but not anymore,” Rupert said.

“It’s heart healthy,” I replied, noting Dave’s past cardiac troubles.

“Yeah,” said Rupert, “if you take out the cheese and the mayo.”

I don’t have heart problems, so I carried the hoagie to one of the five tables crammed into the tiny deli’s 200 square feet, sat down with Sue and munched away.

“Yum!” I said as Sue picked at my potato chips. “This is delicious.”

“I’m glad you like it,” said Rupert. “Since Dave doesn’t eat his own hoagie now, maybe I’ll rename it after you.”

When I suggested he put a Rupert hoagie on the menu because he’s a star, too, Rupert said, “Sometimes it gets so hectic in here, people don’t know who I am. One time a couple came in and thought the guy at the griddle was me. They said, ‘Hi, Rupert!’ Then they took a picture and ran out. The griddle guy got credit for being me. People will come in and say, ‘Is this Rupert’s deli? Which one is Rupert?’ That’s how famous I am.”

Still, business was pretty brisk, with customers cheerily greeting Rupert, a trim, youthful-looking baby boomer who appeared to be in excellent shape.

“I used to eat the profits,” Rupert said. “I have Christmas videos shot from the back. When I first saw them, I said, ‘Who is that massive guy?’ It turned out to be me. That’s the great thing about the food business: Even if things are bad, you eat anyway.”

“How did you lose all that weight?” I asked.

Rupert replied, “Ping-pong.”

Just then, a disheveled man with a gray, scraggly beard came in, lugging a large black garbage bag containing his worldly possessions. He ordered a sandwich and left.

“He’s a homeless former banker,” Rupert explained. “He won’t take free food, but he will take money.”

“Rumor has it that he won’t take chump change,” said May Chin, Rupert’s business partner. “He wants big bills.”

“And he smokes good cigars,” Rupert added.

Sue and I went back to the counter, where I paid $10.04 for my hoagie, a side order of chips and a bottle of cream soda.

“Enjoy the show!” Rupert said.

We did. Alan was in fine voice; Paul and the band were sensational; Barbara Walters did a good job reading the Top 10 List; the real guests, Jerry Seinfeld and Tom Brokaw, were terrific; and Dave, as usual, was great.

Only one thing could have made the show better: If Rupert had come on and brought Dave a Letterman hoagie. Hold the mayo. No baloney.

Copyright 2010 by Jerry Zezima

"Sink or Swim"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

Because I am a journalist with only the lowest standards, there is no level to which I would not sink, no depths I would not plumb, for column material. This column is a classic example because the laundry room sink recently became clogged with material I can’t describe in a family newspaper. Drained after several pathetically futile attempts to solve the problem, I called a plumber.

Harry Strawsacker, 63, the burly, friendly owner of Brookhaven Plumbing and Heating, showed up at precisely the promised time wearing a cap with a picture of a fish on it.

“You’re a fisherman,” I said. “I guess you can’t stay out of water.”

Harry nodded. “Fresh water, salt water or dirty water, I’m always in it,” he replied.

The dirty kind was in the sink, which is used primarily as a receptacle for soap suds and linty residue from the washing machine.

“We’re only two people here,” my wife, Sue, told Harry, “but I’m always doing laundry.”

The sink is also where I wash the litter boxes belonging to our three cats.

“You’ve got a lot of stuff down there,” Harry said.

I told him that I had tried to unclog the sink with three applications of a liquid plumbing product that had about as much effect on the clog as a bottle of beer would have on a bowling ball. Then I took a piece of wire and attempted to dislodge the blockage. The wire broke.

After that, I called a national plumbing chain for an estimate that rivaled the gross national product of Finland. I will not identify the company, but I am not a rooter of its roto service.

Finally, I phoned Harry.

“This job calls for an electric sewer cleaning machine,” he said.

As Harry spun the contraption’s long cable through the pipe next to the washer, he spun tales of his many plumbing and heating adventures.

“One guy called me last week at 11 o’clock at night because his bathtub was clogged up,” Harry related. “I said, ‘Can it wait until morning?’ He said no because he wanted to take a bath and that my ad in the Yellow Pages said I offered 24-hour service. I asked him how long the tub had been clogged and he said, ‘About a month.’ I said, ‘Do me a favor: Rip out the page with my ad on it and throw it away.’ Then I said, ‘You don’t have to tell me where you live because I’ll be able to smell it.’ Some people are unbelievable.”

Like the woman who smelled smoke in her bedroom, where she had a fireplace, but didn’t do anything about it for two weeks. “She went to work one day,” Harry said, “and when she came home, she saw that her house had burned down.”

Then there was the guy whose home became a skating rink while he was in Florida. “His boiler blew and the house froze,” Harry said. “The pipes busted and the water kept running. His car was caked in ice, the cabinets were frozen and the floor had buckled. The guy called me from Florida and said, ‘Meet me at the house tomorrow morning.’ He took one look, handed me the keys and said, ‘Here, take care of the house. I’m going back to Florida.’ You can’t make this stuff up.”

The worst people are the “weekend warriors,” said Harry, adding that he often gets calls on Sunday nights from women who say, “My husband tried to fix the toilet and there’s water all over the place.”

Harry fixed the sink for a fraction of the previous estimate and, as a complimentary service, took care of a small problem in an upstairs toilet.

“Now,” Harry said with a smile as he left, “your wife won’t have to call me on Sunday night.”

Copyright 2010 by Jerry Zezima