Sunday, March 17, 2024

"The Diamond's in the Details"

By Jerry Zezima


As a guy who gets pooped at the mere thought of washing bird droppings off a car, I never figured I would wax poetic over my amazing ability to clean and wax my wife’s wheels. But it turns out I am a gem.


That is the expert opinion of a guy who not only owns a car wash, but who knows all about gems because he used to work in a diamond mine.


I met Edgar Barbosa, proprietor of Auto Salon Detail Center, after my wife, Sue, asked me to rid her silver sedan of the foul feculence of a flock of flighty fiends.


We recently had some tree work done, including the removal of a large branch overhanging the driveway. This must have rankled the rockin’ robins that nested on that branch because they came back a few days later and unloaded whatever they had for lunch all over Sue’s car.


It was up to me to remove the raunchy remains. Unfortunately, they couldn’t be taken off with the traditional cleaning combo of paper towels and Windex.


So I drove to the car wash.


“You need a bath!” Edgar exclaimed.


“So does the car,” I replied.


Auto Salon is not the kind of place where vehicles go through a conveyor and are machine-sprayed with soap, buffed with huge rotating brushes and rinsed off before being dried with powerful fans.


“We do everything by hand,” said Edgar.


On this day, those hands belonged to Jose Cruz and Jorge Estrada, who let me lend a helping hand so I could be handed a compliment by Sue when she found out that my cleaning efforts weren’t for the birds.


I began by using a clay bar, a lubricated pad that removes dirt, grime and, yes, bird droppings.


“Go in a circular motion,” Edgar instructed.


“Good job,” said Jose, who has been in the business for almost 30 years.


Jorge, a relative newcomer with seven years’ experience, was impressed by my ability to hose off the lubricant without soaking myself to the skin.


All three men were relieved when I didn’t lose a finger while using an electric buffer to clean the floor pads of Sue’s car.


“That machine can break your hand,” Edgar warned.


“If it does,” I told him, “you can call me Lefty.”


I got high grades for using a shammy to polish Sue’s trunk.


“I’m really taking a shine to this,” I said.


Edgar, who was very impressed with my handiwork, has a car that has seen better days.


“It’s a 2004 Prius with 295,000 miles on it,” said Edgar, who bought it three years ago for $2,000. “It keeps going,” he added. “And my guys clean it. I don’t have a girlfriend right now. The only reason to have a beautiful car is to impress the ladies.”


Edgar, who is 61, with three children and two grandchildren, has had many jobs over the years. His most memorable one was in Brazil.


“I was in the jungle working in a diamond mine,” he remembered. “One of the guys brought up a diamond that was 326 karats. He said I could buy it for $775,000. I called friends in the U.S. and asked them to send me the money. The next day, somebody else bought the diamond. Then he sold it for $25 million.”


“Do you have any more diamonds?” I wondered. “My wife would be interested.”


“No,” Edgar said. “But you did such a good job on her car that you could work here.”


“Will you pay me enough to afford a diamond?” I asked.


“You won’t become a millionaire in this business,” Edgar said. “But if you save enough money, you can buy your wife a new car.”


Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima


Sunday, March 10, 2024

"Every Pun Intended"

By Jerry Zezima


When it comes to wordplay, I’m the pun and only. Or I had been for the past decade.


In 2014, I competed in Punderdome, a contest billed as “New York’s Most Puntastic Competition.”


At the ripe old age of 60, I was the eldest competitor. But I had the ripe stuff because it was my first appearance, I faced 16 other contestants and I beat them all.


The grand prize was a fondue maker, which I gave to my wife. It was the least I could fondue.


Slow forward to 2024, the 10th anniversary of my champ-pun-ship. To mark the occasion, I made a return engagement, even though I am married.


I was greeted at Littlefield, a performance and art space in Brooklyn, by Fred Firestone, the founder and ringmaster of Punderdome. In the fine art of punning, Firestone never tires.


“JZ!” he exclaimed, calling me by the name I use in Punderdome.


All contestants are required to have punny labels, which are written on labels that are then stuck on their shirts, dresses, pants or whatever they are wearing, which is, of course, immaterial.


Among the 250 or so attendees were a dozen competitors in the All-Star Tournament of Pun Champions, made up of punsters, like me, who had won previous Punderdome events.


They included Lingo Star, the all-time Punderdome champ with 42 victories. He also has been a winner in the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships in Austin, Texas.


“Do you drive a Beetle?” I asked.


“I’m just trying to drum up support,” he replied.


Lingo was one of my five adversaries in the preliminary round, which had two separate competitions of six contestants each.


Here’s how it works: A half-dozen punsters are given a topic and can write down their ideas on small whiteboards before Fred tells them to stop. Then he calls each one up to a microphone on a stage in front of a crowd. The contestant has two minutes to rattle off as many on-topic puns as he or she can before the clock beeps.


When the group is done, the Human Clap-O-Meter — this time it was a young woman named Laura — gauges the audience reaction to each contestant.


My group’s category was stores, appliances and devices. When it was my turn, I referred to an earlier competitor, who made a joke about a friend named LG. I said that at 70, I was old enough to know LG’s father, EKG.


It got a big laugh.


I went on to say that my wife likes my coffee so much that she doesn’t have grounds for complaint. Because she wants me to clean up after dinner, “Dishes my life.” And if I do laundry, it’s a “clothes call” and a “vicious cycle.”


On a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), I got a 9.5 and made the semifinals.


During the 15-minute break before the next round, I was congratulated by several audience members. I was even lauded by my competitors, including Hot Cross Puns, a nine-time Punderdome champ who in her first try was the PunSlingers winner in the 2023 O. Henry competition.


“I’m a theology teacher,” she told me. “I use puns in my lessons.”


“You must have spirited discussions,” I said.


“It’s a testament to my students,” she noted.


Hot Cross Puns made it to the semifinals with me and four other punsters. The topic was snacks, living rooms and furniture.


I said my father liked snacks and that I was a chip off the old block. I made several couch potato, furniture and carpeting puns (“expensive rugs are too much toupee”), but since “sofa, so good” and “ottoman empire” were already used, I conceded “de-feet.”


I got an 8.5, but the two finalists, Daft Pun and the eventual winner, When Wit Hits the Fan, each scored a perfect 10.


Although I didn’t win again, I had a great time.


“You should run for president,” an audience member told me afterward.


“I’m just Biden my time,” I replied. “And I’m sure I would Trump any opponent.”


“JZ, you did great,” said Fred. “Don’t wait another 10 years to come back.”


“By that time, I’ll be 80,” I said. “Pun for the ages.”


Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima


Sunday, March 3, 2024

"The Curse of the Zezbino"

By Jerry Zezima


I will never get into the National Baseball Hall of Fame unless I buy a ticket. That’s because my batting average in Little League was lower than my weight and my winning percentage as the manager of my daughters’ softball team was just as bad.


But even though mighty Jerry struck out countless times, memories of my misadventures on a field of screams came racing back like a fastball I could never hit when I took a recent tour of Fenway Park in Boston.


Fenway is the home of my favorite team, the Red Sox. Opened in 1912, it’s the oldest ballpark in the major leagues and features the game’s most iconic structure, the 37-foot-tall left field wall called the Green Monster.


“It’s pronounced Monstah,” said Dave, our tour guide. “In Boston, there are only 25 letters in the alphabet. There’s no R.”


Naturally, he pronounced it “Ah.”


Dave regaled the group with stories, including “The Curse of the Bambino,” wherein the Sox, who won five World Series titles between 1903 and 1918, sold their star player, Babe Ruth, to the New York Yankees, beginning a championship drought of 86 years that was finally broken in 2004.


As Dave spoke, I thought back to my pathetic athletic career, which should be dubbed “The Curse of the Zezbino.”


It began in Little League, where I was the worst player on a bad team. One year I didn’t get a hit, although I was almost hit by a pitch when I squared around to bunt. Instead of putting my left foot on the outer edge of the batter’s box, as a right-handed hitter is supposed to do when bunting, I put my right foot on the other side of home plate. The ball whizzed past my ear.


“You could have been hit in the head!” the umpire shrieked.


“Then we would have needed a new ball,” the opposing catcher said.


I never liked that kid.


The manager mercifully took me out of the game.


The following season, I got one hit, a ground-rule double.


“You’re hitting this year,” said the second-base ump.


“That’s because I closed my eyes,” I replied.


The curse continued in the family Wiffle ball league. My mother, Rosina, who will turn 100 in November, was the star pitcher and used to strike me out routinely. Then in her 70s, she was the rookie of the year.


A few years ago, my two oldest granddaughters, who were 7 and 4, struck me out and hit home runs off me in a Wiffle ball game. I deserved to be sent down to the minors by a couple of minors.


One time I came down with a sinus infection and was put on steroids. I thought they would make me a better hitter, so I went to a batting cage. The pitching machine threw at 45 miles per hour, the equivalent of a warmup toss in softball. I fouled off one pitch and whiffed on the other 19. I should have been banned from baseball, not for steroids, but for sheer incompetence.


Speaking of softball, I managed the team my two daughters played on when they were kids. One year, we set the club record for victories: three in 12 games. The two previous seasons, we won one game combined. The sponsor, an insurance company, thought I was a poor risk, so I was dropped.


As Dave took the group through the press box at Fenway Park, I recalled my days as a sportswriter for my hometown paper, the Stamford Advocate in Connecticut. I occasionally covered New York’s two major league teams: the Mets and Boston’s biggest rival, the Yankees. It was a dream job that didn’t pay much but did allow me to gorge on free ballpark franks.


Eventually, I left sports so I could write a column with no redeeming social value.


Still, my Fenway tour was a home run. And now I can say that “The Curse of the Zezbino” has finally been broken.


Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima


Sunday, February 25, 2024

"Not Exactly Fast Food"

By Jerry Zezima


I am out to lunch. This is especially true when I make lunch.


That’s because, in my incapable hands, organizing the second meal of the day takes so long that I am surprised I haven’t starved to death by now.


My wife, Sue, who usually eats lunch with me and simplifies matters by having an apple and a cup of tea, marvels at how I can turn something as easy as making a sandwich or a bowl of soup into something so utterly complicated.


Sue will often try to expedite matters by telling me what’s for lunch.


“There are leftovers in the fridge,” she will say. Or, “I bought you some turkey to have on a hard roll.”


It doesn’t help. If I stick the leftovers — chicken, pasta, Chinese food or, my favorite, hot dogs and beans — in the microwave, I will have to reheat them because I didn’t leave them in long enough. If I leave them in until they snap, crackle and pop, they’re too hot and I have to wait for them to cool off.


Or I will have soup, which takes forever to make because first I have to decide whether I want chickarina, creamy tomato or clam chowder. I will dump the soup into a pot, put it on the stove and set it at a temperature that is either too low (the soup stays lukewarm) or too high (it splatters all over the place). Then I have to raise or lower the heat and put a cover on the pot.


You know the old saying: “A watched pot never boils!”


Meanwhile, I have to decide what I want for dessert. Most of the time, I’ll have yogurt. It’s the only way I can get any culture.


Or Sue will tell me to eat a banana before it turns brown. If it does, I always add, much to my beloved’s consternation, it won’t have appeal.


Or I’ll have an apple, which is delicious even if it’s not Delicious.


At this point, Sue has finished her apple and sits at the kitchen table, watching as I set my place with the dessert I have picked but not the main course because, naturally, I haven’t finished making it.


On some days, I will have pizza, either a leftover slice from a pizzeria, some that Sue has made or one of those little frozen jobs in a plastic bag that I can never open without using scissors. Blood loss is a definite concern.


I will place the pizza on a baking sheet or a piece of aluminum foil, which I spritz with cooking spray. I’ll set the oven at 350 degrees, put the pizza in and wait. By the time it’s done, the rumbling of my stomach practically rattles the windows.


On most days, I will have a sandwich. This is by far the most time-consuming part of the ordeal. That is due to my indecision over whether to have a hard roll or bread. Sometimes I forget to take the roll out of the freezer in the morning so it can thaw and I have to nuke it in the microwave (see above). As for bread, I prefer Italian, but lately I’ve been having whole wheat. I am afraid to ask Sue why there isn’t partial wheat.


Then I have to decide what to put in it: peanut butter, tuna fish or cold cuts, which can be salami, turkey or, appropriately, bologna.


If I have cold cuts, I may add a slice or two of cheese. Or maybe not. After all, I want to keep my boyish figure.


Pickles or tomatoes? Another big decision.


After that, I have to pick a condiment: mayonnaise or mustard. If I can’t cut the mustard, I’ll give a mayo clinic. Or I’ll just slather on both of them.


Then I slap the second slice of bread on top, cut the sandwich in two and bring it to the table.


By the time I finally sit down to lunch, Sue is already asking me what I want for dinner. It’s a good thing I don’t have to make it or we’d never eat.


Copyright 2024 by Jerry Zezima