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By Jerry Zezima Whenever I’m cooking with gas, which causes people who eat what I cook to have the same thing, I’m afraid I will not only burn the burgers but be blown to smithereens, after whi…

By Jerry Zezima W…

By Jerry Zezima Whenever I’m cooking with gas, which causes people who eat what I cook to have the same thing, I’m afraid I will not only burn the burgers but be blown to smithereens, after which I will rest in pieces. That’s why I feel much safer now that I have a new grill, even though I had to reassemble part of it and ended up with a couple of screws left over. I put them in a container with my other loose screws. My wife, Sue, who does the inside cooking, agreed that we needed a new grill so I could do the outside cooking, which doesn’t measure up to hers because it’s r…

By Jerry Zezima You know you’re old and washed up as an athlete when you hurt your arm playing Wiffle ball. That’s what happened when I was the pitcher in a spirited game with my grandchildr…

By Jerry Zezima Y…

By Jerry Zezima You know you’re old and washed up as an athlete when you hurt your arm playing Wiffle ball. That’s what happened when I was the pitcher in a spirited game with my grandchildren, who not only hit home runs off me but ran so fast around the nonexistent bases in my backyard that when I tried to throw them out at home plate, I threw out my arm instead. Now you can call me Lefty. But I’m still ambidextrous — incompetent with both hands. Also playing were my younger daughter, a star athlete as a kid who now has knee problems, and one of my sons-in-law, who once th…

By Jerry Zezima As a man who can’t stay awake for the 11 o’clock news, which isn’t worth watching anyway, I tire easily. Then I fall asleep. And I snore with enough force to wake up not only …

By Jerry Zezima A…

By Jerry Zezima As a man who can’t stay awake for the 11 o’clock news, which isn’t worth watching anyway, I tire easily. Then I fall asleep. And I snore with enough force to wake up not only the dead, who Sleep pretty soundly, but also my wife, who would like to kill me. So I got a CPAP machine, which was supposed to cure my sleep apnea. Stupidly, which is how I do almost everything, I used it only a few times and put it in my closet. After the machine sat there for several weeks, I had to return it to the diagnostics company. That’s because the insurance company, whose rates …

By Jerry Zezima Medicine commercials give me a headache. Unfortunately, I have to pay attention to them because their products can either: (a) relieve my headache or (b) kill me. So I strike a c…

By Jerry Zezima M…

By Jerry Zezima Medicine commercials give me a headache. Unfortunately, I have to pay attention to them because their products can either: (a) relieve my headache or (b) kill me. So I strike a compromise: Whenever one of these pitches comes on the TV screen, which happens approximately once a minute, I turn down the sound. I can’t bear to listen as the announcer announces that the side effects for the prescription medication in question can include gastric distress, swelling of the earlobes, neck pain, body odor, dandruff or bad breath. After that, I am warned not to operate heav…

By Jerry Zezima With apologies to Frank Sinatra, who is dead and can’t sue me, I am the chairman of the board. And I’m not just singing my own praises. After decades of failing miserably at …

By Jerry Zezima W…

By Jerry Zezima With apologies to Frank Sinatra, who is dead and can’t sue me, I am the chairman of the board. And I’m not just singing my own praises. After decades of failing miserably at board games, one of which had such a monopoly on me that I went directly to jail, I am game to announce that I recently emerged triumphant in not one but two exciting games of bingo. Best of all, I dethroned my mother, Rosina, who at 101 years old is a bona fide bingo champion. Mom doesn’t employ gamesmanship, or even gameswomanship, but she did use talent, experience and a bit of luck to …

By Jerry Zezima The only thing that left me cold when my wife and I got a new refrigerator is that it didn’t come stocked with beer. But the cool part is that it doesn’t freeze food, as our …

By Jerry Zezima T…

By Jerry Zezima The only thing that left me cold when my wife and I got a new refrigerator is that it didn’t come stocked with beer. But the cool part is that it doesn’t freeze food, as our old fridge did. And it is designed in such a convenient way that I can now find what I am looking for — pickles, mustard or, yes, beer — which I could never do before, even when it was staring me in the face. Sue and I realized we needed a new fridge when we discovered ice chunks in the milk. Also, the water in a plastic bottle was frozen solid. If there was something in the back of the ref…

By Jerry Zezima If Steven Spielberg made a movie about the killer fish that lives in my house, he’d have to call it “Gums.” That’s because the aggressive little betta that swims in a pla…

By Jerry Zezima I…

By Jerry Zezima If Steven Spielberg made a movie about the killer fish that lives in my house, he’d have to call it “Gums.” That’s because the aggressive little betta that swims in a plastic bowl on the liquor cabinet, which leads me to believe that it drinks like a fish, has no teeth but still wants to devour me. Every morning, when I drop a food pellet into its watery confines, the fish leaps up and grabs my index finger. Maybe I should give it the adjacent finger. Anyway, I was recently told by a pleasant “animal specialist” named Alisha, who works at the pet store w…

By Jerry Zezima Because my column is the greatest thing since sliced bread, which still is not as great as cold beer, I have as my special guest today Dr. Sigmund Fritz, bestselling author of the c…

By Jerry Zezima B…

By Jerry Zezima Because my column is the greatest thing since sliced bread, which still is not as great as cold beer, I have as my special guest today Dr. Sigmund Fritz, bestselling author of the classic, iconic and highly questionable book “On the Fritz: How to Spot a Narcissist by the Greatest Psychoanalyst of All Time (and Don’t You Forget It).” JZ: Welcome, Dr. Fritz. SF: Thank you, Mr. Zezima. It is your honor and privilege to have me. JZ: Your book, which has been praised by leading physicians as a cure for insomnia, focuses on narcissists. How do you spot one? SF: H…

By Jerry Zezima There is an ottoman empire in our house. That’s because my wife, Sue, ordered yet another ottoman. It was recently delivered and put in the Family room to replace the old ottom…

By Jerry Zezima T…

By Jerry Zezima There is an ottoman empire in our house. That’s because my wife, Sue, ordered yet another ottoman. It was recently delivered and put in the family room to replace the old ottoman, which was not discarded but instead was pushed against the wall, making three ottomans (ottomen?) in the same room. There’s another one in the living room. And I have a footstool in my office. I’m surprised there isn’t something I can rest my feet on in the bathroom. If that weren’t enough, two of the four ottomans have storage areas where we keep approximately 150 blankets…

By Jerry Zezima If you think your kids grow up fast, wait until you have grandchildren. I didn’t have to wait long for this revelation because my oldest grandchild is already a teenager. If th…

By Jerry Zezima I…

By Jerry Zezima If you think your kids grow up fast, wait until you have grandchildren. I didn’t have to wait long for this revelation because my oldest grandchild is already a teenager. If that weren’t enough, she and my four other grandkids are more mature than I am. It was true not only when I was their age — the youngest are 6-year-old twins — but, at 72, right now. Thus have I discovered the fountain of youth: Immaturity. If you want to stay young, don’t grow up. This means everyone else is getting old except me. That goes for my two daughters, the mothers of my gran…

By Jerry Zezima It does my heart good to know that my heart is in the right place (right now it’s in my office, where I am, too) and that I don’t need open-heart surgery. That’s why I was …

By Jerry Zezima I…

By Jerry Zezima It does my heart good to know that my heart is in the right place (right now it’s in my office, where I am, too) and that I don’t need open-heart surgery. That’s why I was happy to have a heart-to-heart talk with a very nice ultrasound technician named Emily, who gave me an echocardiogram. It showed, among other things, that I am able to fire off dumb remarks in a heartbeat. I had the test to see if my aortic aneurysm, which was discovered a year and a half ago, had grown to the size of a colorful balloon with cartoon hearts and the words “Get well soon!” …

By Jerry Zezima I am a man of vision — 20/30, to be exact. And my wife, Sue, is a woman of vision — also 20/30. So why can’t we find our glasses? Or keep track of how many pairs we have? O…

By Jerry Zezima I…

By Jerry Zezima I am a man of vision — 20/30, to be exact. And my wife, Sue, is a woman of vision — also 20/30. So why can’t we find our glasses? Or keep track of how many pairs we have? Or use the right ones when we want to read, drive or watch TV? Those were the eye-opening questions we had for a certified optician who gave each of us a free vision screening at a local library. “When you go to an eye doctor, you should always be late,” I told Andy Torres, who sat behind a table with a screening machine. “Why?” he asked. “Because,” I replied triumphantly, �…