"The Waiting Game"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

As a motorist who has been driving (people crazy) for four decades, I am used to sitting in traffic for hours at a time. But I didn’t think I would have to sit for part of two days when I went to renew my registration at the DMV, which stands for Department of Mass Vexation.

My adventure began on a Friday morning, when I drove to the DMV in Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., and found that, because of budget cuts, the place was closed. Instead of looking on the door for the office hours, which would have indicated the place was closed the next day, too, I went back the next day and found that -- surprise! -- the place was closed.

My keen deductive powers convinced me not to show up Sunday. So I went back Monday morning and beheld a scene that was something out of a Cecil B. DeMille epic.

“I’m sorry,” said the nice woman at the front counter, where I was given number F-130, “but we’ve had a lot of layoffs and two people called in sick today. You’re looking at a two-hour wait.”

I sat down with about 100 other poor souls in the hope that her estimate was wrong. After 20 minutes, I decided it was -- the wait would be at least three hours. I left and came back even earlier the next morning.

Everyone from the previous day must have had the same idea because they were back, too. I went to the front counter and took a number. It was F-120.

“I think I know what the F stands for,” I told the nice woman.

She smiled and said, “Good luck.”

I sat down next to a guy who said, “I’ve been here for three days.”

“Your family must be worried,” I replied. “Did you bring a sleeping bag?”

“I should have,” he said. “I showed up Thursday morning and the line was out the door. I waited a while and gave up. The place was closed Friday.”

“I know,” I said.

“I came back yesterday and the woman at the counter said it would be a two-hour wait,” he continued. “I stuck around for about 20 minutes and left.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“So here I am for a third day,” said the guy, who had number C-411.

A disembodied voice announced, “Now serving A-004 at window No. 4.”

“We’ll be here forever,” I said.

A little while later, the voice announced, “Now serving C-411 at window No. 3.”

“That’s me!” the guy exclaimed. People around us applauded. I high-fived him. “It’s like winning the lottery,” he said as he scampered up to the window.

I sat from here to eternity, watching people text, surf the Web on their laptops, read books or look at the overhead TV, which featured the Motor Vehicle Network. Programming included a game called “Can You Guess the Celebrities?” and a commercial for a law firm that specializes in personal injury cases resulting from motor vehicle accidents.

Finally, I heard the disembodied voice say, “Now serving F-120 at window No. 8.”

“Yes!” I exulted as other customers congratulated me. I stepped up to the window and was greeted by a pleasant woman named Dotty. I told her that I had been to the DMV recently to get my license renewed and that I was in and out in no time. “Everything was very smooth and everyone was very nice,” I said. “The DMV gets a bad rap.”

“We do,” Dotty acknowledged. “But we’ve been extremely busy lately because we are short-staffed. I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”

“Just a couple of days,” I replied.

“That’ll be $196.50,” Dotty said. “Make out the check to DMV.”

“How do you spell that?” I asked.

Dotty smiled. “Now you don’t have to do this again for two years,” she noted.

I nodded and said, “I can wait.”

Copyright 2012 by Jerry Zezima

"The Height of Folly"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

How much wood could a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker could peck wood?

Only a birdbrain would ask that question. So it should come as no surprise that it has been on my mind. It also should come as no surprise that my mind is in the gutter. This explains why, despite a paralyzing fear of heights, I recently had to climb up to the roof of our two-story Colonial, not just to reattach the gutter, but to battle a demented woodpecker whose mind -- and bill -- must have been in there, too.

The problem began when my wife, Sue, and I were rudely awakened at 6 o’clock one morning by what sounded like machine-gun fire hitting the house.

“Whoever is shooting at us is a bad aim,” I said drowsily.

“No one’s trying to kill us,” Sue replied. “That’s a woodpecker.”

Sure enough, we suddenly had a fine feathered friend that came back at the same time every day to serve as an avian alarm clock. Then we noticed that part of the gutter on the corner of the roof had come loose.

“It can’t be,” I said to myself, because Sue had already gotten up. “A woodpecker couldn’t have done that.”

There was only one way to find out: Send Sue up there.

“There’s another way to find out,” she said firmly.

So I got the extension ladder from the garage and, armed with a power drill and a set of gutter screws, started a climb that would have given a mountain goat nosebleeds. I don’t like to be any higher off the ground than the top of my head. Unfortunately, the top of my head would have to reach the top of the house.

Complicating matters was a weeping cherry tree that partially impeded my long ascent.

“If I fall,” I told Sue, “I’ll be a weeping Jerry.”

Life has its ups and downs. So did this project, during which I went up and down the ladder about half a dozen times, frequently getting entangled in the cherry tree’s branches. I registered my displeasure in language that can’t be repeated here.

“Hon,” said Sue, who was watching this pathetic scene from the safety of terra firma, “you’re talking to a tree.”

Pretty soon I was talking to the power drill and the gutter screws, expressing similar sentiments because, like all inanimate objects, with which I have been waging a lifelong losing war, they wouldn’t cooperate. Finally, I got a hammer and banged a new screw into the aluminum gutter, its vinyl backing and the wood on the face of the house. For good measure, did the same with the loose screws (in the gutter, not my head).

While I was up there, I noticed some holes in the wood. I put 2 and 2 together and came up with 22. “The woodpecker!” I thought. “Maybe now he’ll go away.”

I figured he wouldn’t peck the aluminum gutter or the vinyl siding on the house, but just to make sure, I looked up “woodpecker deterrent” on Google and was directed to the website of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Under “general woodpecker deterrents,” there were tips for getting rid of the birds by tactile, visual and sound means. Among them were aluminum foil strips, windsocks, handheld windmills, plastic owls and an electronic distress call system.

“Instead of windsocks, maybe I can use my own dirty socks,” I suggested to Sue.

“That would poison the woodpecker,” she said. “Then you’d have to deal with the animal-rights folks.”

I wasn’t about to climb back up to the roof and hold a windmill in my hand. And I didn’t want to nail a plastic owl to the shingles. I suppose I could have recorded myself doing a Woody Woodpecker imitation, but one of the neighbors might have called the cops.

So I put some aluminum foil strips up there. So far, the woodpecker hasn’t come back. Still, I wonder: How much aluminum could a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker could peck aluminum?

Only a birdbrain would ask that question, too.

Copyright 2012 by Jerry Zezima

"The Dirt on Lawn Care"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

Spring has sprung, and a young man’s thoughts turn to love. Unfortunately, a middle-age man’s thoughts turn to yard work, which he doesn’t love. That’s especially true in my case. The situation is so bad that I would put a “Keep Off the Grass” sign on my front lawn, but there isn’t much grass to keep off.

So I went to a nearby Home Depot store to take a lawn-maintenance class.

The teachers were Frank, a lawn-care specialist, and Anita, a gardening specialist. The students were Susan, a new homeowner, and yours truly, an old homeowner who isn’t a specialist in anything, especially lawn care or gardening.

The two most important things I learned in the class were: (a) have your kids do your yard work or (b) hire a professional to do it.

Since (a) my kids are out of the house and wouldn’t do yard work anyway and (b) I can’t afford to hire a professional (some, including my kids, might say I’m too cheap), I have to do it myself.

“My lawn looks like it was manicured with a flamethrower,” I told Frank.

“Did you spread fertilizer?” he asked.

“I’ve been spreading fertilizer for years,” I replied. “And not just on my lawn.”

Fertilizer is very important for grass. So -- surprise! -- is grass seed.

“Water also is very important,” Frank said.

“I prefer beer,” I told him.

“I can see why you’re here,” he commented.

I’m glad I was because I found out that what I had already done -- drop seed and then, a few days later, spread fertilizer -- was, according to Frank, “totally wrong.” He said, “You should do one or the other.”

Anita agreed, adding: “Use a thatcher.”

“You mean Margaret Thatcher?” I asked. “I don’t think she’d come all the way over from England to help me take care of my lawn.”

After hearing this, Susan, my classmate, must have felt like a genius, though she admitted, “I just bought my house and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “I bought my house 14 years ago and I still have no idea what I’m doing.”

But Susan and I got a good education from Frank and Anita, who talked about various kinds of grass seed, fertilizer and soil. They also went over subjects such as weed and fungus control and showed us how to use tools such as spreaders and rakes.

“An iron rake is very effective,” Anita said.

“I should use one to comb my hair,” I remarked.

“You need a special kind with teeth,” she noted.

“Will I have to bring it to the dentist?” I asked.

“No,” Anita replied. “But you will have to bring it outside and use it to go over bare patches and mossy areas of your lawn.” That, she added, will help grass seed take root instead of just sitting on top of the hard ground. Same goes for fertilizer, which should be spread in the spring, summer and fall. The period in autumn just before the leaves drop is best for seeding, she said.

“Who does your lawn?” I asked.

“A lawn guy,” Anita admitted. “But I seeded it first. My husband helps. My kids used to help -- I have a boy and a girl -- but they’re in college now.”

Frank said, “I have two teenage boys, but I do the lawn myself. It looks good.”

I was so inspired by these two specialists, who said I graduated second in my class, that I am taking their advice: I will seed and fertilize at the proper times, water regularly and set my lawnmower higher so the grass -- or what there is of it so far -- won’t be too short.

In the meantime, I am going to put another sign on my lawn: “Keep Off the Dirt.”

Copyright 2012 by Jerry Zezima

"Jerry Duty"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse: Report to jury duty for a mob trial or wake up next to a horse’s head. My wife, Sue, who wakes up every morning next to the other end of a horse, said it would be safer to do my civic duty than to end up on trial myself.

So I drove to the United States District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., to see if I would be selected to sit on the jury for the trial of two alleged mobsters who were charged with murder, robbery, extortion and -- perhaps the most serious offense -- having silly nicknames.

I was one of about 225 prospective jurors in a pool of more than 400. I don’t know what happened to the others (maybe they’re in the witness protection program), but our group had to sit around so long that we could have watched three episodes of “Law & Order.”

Finally, we were led from the juror waiting area to a long hallway where we were told to break into double file. Then we had to step up to a table at which two jury administrators gave us juror numbers (mine was 390) and told each of us to take a pencil, which we would later use to fill out a questionnaire.

“If I keep the pencil, will I get nabbed for stealing?” I asked one of the administrators.

“It’s the property of the federal government,” she replied, pleasantly but firmly. “You have to return it on your way out.”

My grand larceny case would have to wait because I was on my way into a courtroom so large, it could have hosted a Hollywood premiere.

“Am I going to see a movie?” I asked deputy court clerk Melissa Burke, who ushered me into the second row.

“No,” she said, “but you will be entertained.”

Burke turned out to be so entertaining that she should be in Hollywood.

“Welcome to U.S. District Court,” she said. “We’re very happy to see you.”

Burke instructed us to stand and raise our right hands so we could be sworn in.

“This is a criminal trial,” she continued. “It could last 10 weeks. You will be reimbursed for your travel expenses. Make sure you get parking and bridge receipts. Don’t worry about figuring out mileage. We’ll do that. We’re the feds. We know where you live.”

When someone asked if the trial would be held on weekends, Burke replied, “No. The judge has a life. I have a life. We won’t sequester you. We’re not here to put you up in a hotel. Don’t think we’re going to give you the keys to a suite at the Marriott. You have to go back home to your spouses whether you like it or not.”

A woman raised her hand and said, “I’m pregnant.”

“Congratulations,” said Burke. “You can put that down under hardship.”

“I might try that excuse myself,” I said to the person sitting next to me. Then I raised my hand and asked, “How come you don’t have your own talk show?”

Burke smiled and said, “People have asked me that, but it’s not my passion. I want to be a lawyer.”

A guy in the back muttered, “My condolences.”

Before each of us filled out a 43-page questionnaire, Burke said those of us who were called back would have to report the following week.

“Don’t tell your boss that you have to report for the rest of this week and then go to Atlantic City or Las Vegas,” she warned. “Your employers will be calling us. We will tell them the truth.”

After filling out the questionnaire, I returned my pencil to the jury administrator and went straight home. I was called back but wasn’t selected to sit on the jury.

“Thank you for serving,” Burke told me.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Here’s my verdict: Get an agent. And if you’re ever an attorney on ‘Law & Order,’ I want to be one of the jurors.”

Copyright 2012 by Jerry Zezima

"Scrambled Egghead"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

I’ve never had breakfast at Tiffany’s, but I have had breakfast at Zezima’s. And I can tell you from personal experience -- because I’m the one who has made breakfast -- that my eggs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

That’s why I recently went to my favorite diner, CookRoom in Middle Island, N.Y., to learn how to cook eggs without having to scramble out the door and go somewhere, like my favorite diner, for a real breakfast.

Every Saturday morning, I make myself two eggs, often sunny side up but sometimes scrambled, especially if I accidentally break the eggs I am trying to cook sunny side up. I also have link sausage (if there are missing links, I use bacon) and either toast or a bagel, along with coffee and orange juice, though not in the same cup.

The meal is usually passable (no further explanation needed) but not really delicious. So I went to CookRoom to take a short course in short-order cooking.

My teacher was Roberto Benitez, who taught me a very important lesson: If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. CookRoom doesn’t have a kitchen because it’s a genuine diner, so it only has a griddle behind the counter. Still, Roberto is always as cool as a cucumber.

“I don’t put cucumbers in eggs,” he said, “but you can if you want to.”

In fact, Roberto’s favorite breakfast isn’t eggs. “I like Oreo pancakes,” he said as he prepared an order of three regular pancakes that were the size of Frisbees.

“I’ve seen only one person finish a whole stack of pancakes,” said manager Debbie Sweeney, “and it was a thin girl. Not even grown men can finish them.”

“I can,” said Roberto, who is a thin guy, “but I work it off.”

He had to work pretty hard to teach me how to cook breakfast without either making a mess or burning the place down.

According to waitress Dawn Millwater, my order was “CR No. 1 up, rye,” which meant two eggs sunny side up, with bacon, sausage, home fries and rye toast, as well as coffee and orange juice.

“I thought my order would be ‘JZ 911,’ which you’d have to call after I made breakfast,” I told Debbie.

“It won’t be that bad,” she assured me. “But just to be on the safe side, you won’t be making breakfast for any customers.”

As I stepped up to the griddle, Roberto showed me how to crack an egg. “One quick hit,” he said. “Not too hard or you’ll break it.”

“Then the yolk would be on me,” I replied.

Roberto politely ignored the remark and handed me the second egg. I hit it against the side of the griddle. Nothing happened. “Not too gentle, either,” he said.

“I’m pathetically out of shape,” I explained. Then I hit the egg again. This time it cracked. I separated the shell and poured the contents onto the griddle. The eggs sizzled.

“You have to keep the griddle very hot,” said Roberto, adding that I should watch the bacon, sausage and home fries so they wouldn’t end up frazzled.

I was frazzled trying to keep track of everything. When the eggs were done, Roberto handed me a large spatula and said to slide it under them. I tried, but the spatula didn’t move.

“Harder,” he said.

My next attempt almost sent the spatula flying. The third time was the charm. I slipped the spatula under the eggs and, without breaking the yolks, placed them gently on my plate, followed by the rest of the meal.

Then I sat down at the counter to the most delicious breakfast I have ever had.

The following Saturday morning, I made the same thing at home. It wasn’t nearly as good as Roberto would have made, but at least I didn’t have to call 911.

Copyright 2012 by Jerry Zezima

"That's the Ticket"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

I am not a lawyer, although I have been admitted to many bars, but at the risk of being sentenced to life in prison for felonious stupidity, I decided to represent myself recently when I went to traffic court to fight a parking ticket.

I got it when I drove with my wife, Sue, and our younger daughter, Lauren, to the Port Jefferson train station near our house on Long Island for a trip to New York, N.Y., it’s a hell of a town, the city that never sleeps, a place where I could be king of the hill, top of the heap, and come back to find a $100 ticket on the windshield of my car.

The problem was that I couldn’t find a parking space at the train station, so I parked in an adjacent lot I thought was affiliated with the station. It wasn’t.

The Zezimas took Manhattan (and politely gave it back after spending considerably more than the original $24 selling price), then returned to find the parking ticket. About three weeks later, I got a piece of mail that read:

“Re: Vehicle plate number JZEE

“OFFICIAL NOTICE

“You are hereby ordered to appear for a conference at:

“PORT JEFFERSON VILLAGE COURT to determine the final disposition of the outstanding summons(es) issued to the above-mentioned vehicle plate number.

“Failure to appear will result in rendering a default judgment.”

Since it was not the fault of my judgment, rendering me innocent, I didn’t fail to appear in court at the mandated time of 7 p.m. Neither did about 100 other people, who were there for parking tickets, moving violations and various misdemeanors.

It was standing room only, so it was not asking too much for me to stand, which I was already doing, as the Hon. John F. Reilly entered the courtroom.

Judge Reilly, who was indeed honorable, opened the proceedings by explaining that defendants could either plead guilty or ask for a conference with the district attorney. This, he said, could result in a subsequent guilty plea with the possibility of a reduced fine or a trial to be held at a later date.

I imagined my case going all the way to the Supreme Court -- for a parking ticket.

My reverie was interrupted when Judge Reilly called my name.

“How do you plead?” he asked as I stood before him.

“Clueless, your honor,” I replied.

“Clueless is not an option,” Judge Reilly said. “You have to plead either guilty or not guilty.”

“Not guilty,” I said firmly.

I was instructed to sit down, if I could find a seat, and wait for my conference with the DA. About 10 minutes later, I was called over by Dara Martin, the village prosecutor, who also was honorable. I was about to explain why I was so clueless in my failure to notice signs in the parking lot next to the train station (it’s for a residential complex) when she said I had two parking tickets.

“The first is from 2006,” prosecutor Martin said, showing me the ticket. “It’s for a black Chevy Suburban and it has your plate number, JZEE.”

“My wife got me the plate because she said I had that name before Jay-Z,” I said, “but it was only three or four years ago. And I have never driven a black Chevy Suburban. I have a gold Hyundai Santa Fe.”

Since the ticket was six years old, the cost would have been in the hundreds of dollars, said prosecutor Martin, who tossed it out and asked me to explain the cluelessness that led to the second ticket.

“OK,” she said, going easy on me. “I’ll reduce it to $40 if you plead guilty.”

“Guilty as charged,” I said. “Now I don’t have to go to the Supreme Court.”

Copyright 2012 by Jerry Zezima

"Too Cuticle for Words"

By Jerry Zezima

The Stamford Advocate

As a man with his finger on the pulse of America, which could get me into legal trouble, I am happy to report that I still have a pulse after surviving an infected finger.

The trouble was caused by a hangnail that developed into paronychia, a bacterial hand infection that can lead to banishment from nail salons or, in extreme cases, death.

I can just imagine the lead of my obituary: “Jerry Zezima, a longtime newspaper columnist and certified public nuisance, died yesterday of complications from a hangnail. He was 58.”

Actually, I am old enough to know better. But I didn’t, which is why I plucked the stupid thing instead of using a nail clipper or, even better, a Ginsu knife, which is advertised on the company’s website as being able to “cut through a nail,” as well as a tin can or a radiator hose, “and still slice a tomato paper thin.”

Fortunately, I don’t have a Ginsu knife or I might have amputated my finger. Which may have been necessary anyway because the infection, according to several trained medical professionals, was pretty severe.

The first one I saw was Julia Leydon, an occupational health nurse at work. When I walked into her office on a Friday morning, she immediately noticed my right index finger, possibly because it was so big and so red that if I had been standing on a street corner with my hand raised, cars might actually have stopped.

“That doesn’t look good,” she said ominously.

“It doesn’t feel good,” I replied. “If it gets any bigger, I could be a float in the Thanksgiving parade.”

Julia, who is certified in case management, stated certifiably that my case needed immediate management. She took me downstairs and said she was going to make me a cocktail.

“I could use a drink,” I said. “It might numb the pain.”

“It’s a little too early in the day for the kind of cocktail you have in mind,” said Julia, who whipped up a concoction of hydrogen peroxide and warm water, into which she gently immersed my finger.

“Soak for 20 minutes,” she instructed. “Then repeat three or four times a day. After each soaking, put some Bacitracin on your finger and cover it with a Band-Aid.”

Julia gave me a few packets of Bacitracin, an antibiotic ointment, and several Band-Aids.

“Are you right-handed?” she asked.

“I’m ambidextrous,” I said. “I’m incompetent with both hands.”

“If you notice red lines starting to go down your finger,” Julia warned, “you should see a doctor.”

By the next morning, my finger looked like it was about to be the cause of one of those Hollywood movie explosions in which a fireball erupts and blows a guy (in this case, me) across the street.

Since it was Saturday, and I couldn’t see my doctor, I went to a clinic, where an attending physician winced when she saw my finger and suggested I continue to soak it. “Add epsom salt to the water,” she said, giving me a prescription for an antibiotic. “If your finger isn’t better by Monday, come back and we’ll lance it.”

By Monday, my finger seemed almost as big as my head, except that my head is empty and my finger doesn’t have a mustache. I went back to the clinic and another physician said he would relieve the pressure by draining the humongous digit. The stuff that came out could have clogged a drain, but I felt greatly relieved.

I continued to soak my finger and finished the antibiotics.

“It’s looking much better,” Julia the nurse said when I saw her for a follow-up visit. “Next time you get a hangnail, don’t pull it out.”

“At least it didn’t kill me,” I said. “Then I would have been a victim of the fickle finger of fate.”

Copyright 2012 by Jerry Zezima