Mike Buzzelli

Christmas has been over for more than a month now, and I’m wondering if your house has turned into a junkyard for broken toys yet. Most likely, that happened on Dec. 26, and you’re way over it.

With great skill, I managed to survive another year. Twenty-twenty-two tried to kill me. I went to the emergency room three times and to MedExpress once.

Welcome to the limbo between the holidays. The No-Longer-Christmas-But-Not-Quite-New-Year’s-Week is a strange cluster of days.

I am a little disgruntled by Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year. They landed on “goblin mode,” which, technically, is two words. Goblin mode should be considered the Words of the Year, or the Phrase of the Year, but not the Word of the Year.

Welcome to Cyber Monday. A day that means nothing to our technologically impaired friends and/or the people who spent all of their money on Black Friday.

I was one of those weird kids who grabbed a hairbrush and pretended it was a microphone, a mic with a clump of curly, black hair on it. Eww. I used to pick up my GI Joe action figure and pretended that he was an Academy Award, an Oscar with Kung Fu Grip!

My name is Mike Buzzelli, and I am a klutz.

Once again, I’m in an abandoned shopping mall and I can’t find the men’s room. Then, I remember I haven’t been in a shopping mall since the late ‘90s or early ‘00s. I wake up from my recurring nightmare and head to the bathroom. After I stumble back to bed, I realize I’m wide awake at 3 a.m.…

Autumn is upon us, and I’m eating vegetable soup for the fifth day in a row. The potatoes in my soup turned gray, but I’m still slurping it up.

Over the weekend, I was sitting on the beach, staring at the full moon, and I was thinking about how it’s weird that the sun and the moon look similar in size, but – in reality – the sun is much bigger. I learned that the sun is, in fact, 400 times larger than the moon. That’s huge. I cannot…

This summer, I went all the way across the world to the most exotic locale I could imagine. I flew to a resort on the coast of Egypt and swam in the Red Sea.

Knowledge is power. Unfortunately, the trivial facts stuck in my cerebellum couldn’t fuel a 10-watt bulb for 10 seconds. My brain looks like the insides of your neighbor’s garage. It’s filled with tangled Christmas lights, moth-eaten lace tablecloths and a teddy bear missing one of his black…

Picture it: Washington, D.C., last Thursday. I stood in front of a crowd of romance writers, some professional authors with multiple book deals, others who were putting pen to paper for the very first time. Standing in front of these people (mostly women of various ethnicities) seemed like a…

These days, flying is a lot like playing Russian Roulette – with more bullets! I had booked a trip to Egypt, but I made it only as far as Newark, N.J., when I got stuck.

It’s assumed that if you pack a suitcase, it will arrive at your final destination. I blame myself. When flying, it’s best to avoid the phrase “final destination.”

My patience has been running low. Let’s face it, there was never much of it in that tank in the first place.

I twisted the wrong way. In an attempt to grab the mail without going outside in the pouring rain, I maneuvered myself into a spasm-inducing shape. The pain was immediate. I dropped the Shop ‘n Save flyer and grabbed my rib cage. A superlative string of PG-13 words escaped my gaping maw. The…

Last week, I was hanging out in a cabin in the woods. Let’s be clear. I was by no means roughing it. The house had all the modern amenities including a giant plasma TV screen, WiFi and a hot tub. It was one of those rental homes in the woods with a cutesy name on the door like the Duck Inn, …

I have an elaborate morning ritual. My alarm clock is not near me. It’s on a cabinet 10 feet away from the bed. Every morning, I have to get up and walk across the room to turn it off. The noise from this annoying device screeches like the siren of an ambulance. The kind you hear rolling thr…

Welcome to May. I’ve never been happier to flip the calendar over and usher in the new month. I am assuming that summer is coming.

I woke up in the middle of the night.

The big studios want to get you back in the seats at the local cineplex. Despite a global pandemic, producers can’t seem to figure out why we aren’t planting our butts in their newly refurbished recliners and buying popcorn. The studios need to face our breakup with dignity. They need to tak…

The conversation began innocently enough, but it could have turned ugly fast. I was chatting with an older woman at the post office, and she said, “You’ll never guess how old I am,” and she was right. I never would have guessed. It wasn’t because I was astonished that she was much younger th…

During the beginning of the pandemic, I missed people. I hunkered down, huddled over a laptop and worked from home. The only time I interacted with my fellow earthlings was on Zoom.

A few years ago, I went into a restaurant with a friend. It was crowded (clearly, this is a pre-COVID story). The staff would walk by, ignoring us as we stood by the sign that read, “Please Wait To Be Seated.”

A couple of weeks ago, the lottery jackpot was growing exponentially. It was reaching enormous sums. I fantasized about winning the $444 million Powerball.

A few weeks ago, my cousin Nicole texted me a photo of a tub of ricotta cheese, and followed it up with, “Guess what’s in here?”

Welcome to the weirdest week of the year. That strange gap between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The In-Between times. The Holiday Limbo.

It’s a good day. I leapt out of bed this morning, feeling alive, energetic and ready to start a bright, new day.

I’ve been back in Pittsburgh for 11 years. Almost 12! I am very happy being back in the ‘Burgh, but, after 10 years in sunny California, I still haven’t adjusted to the weather.

When I lived in Los Angeles, I did some film and TV work. Yes, I was the boob on the tube.

I hurt my nose, and I blame the weather. The reason that autumn is at fault for my most recent injury is an odd one, coldness. Bear with me. All will be revealed.

Right before the pandemic, I went to Australia with my friends, Harry and Brian. We flew off from Pittsburgh on a Friday and arrived on a Sunday. Even though we crossed the International Date Line, it was a long journey.

You always hear about great comedians who become great actors, like Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, and Whoopi Goldberg. I will never be one of those people. I could become a great comedian, but I could never become a decent actor.

I will never be graceful. I’m quite the opposite; a klutz with a capital K. I hurry and scurry around too much, like a chipmunk searching for a walnut.

I’ve taken a bunch of Buzzfeed quizzes. I found out that if I were a dessert, I’d be a Key Lime Pie (sweet and sour). I’m a Dorothy with a rising Blanche. If I were kidnapped, and I had to be rescued by the TV characters of the last show I watched, I’d be up Schitt’s Creek. I’d be dead befor…

I have a complicated relationship with ghosts. I am skeptical, but I’ve also had a few personal experiences in my life that are hard to explain.

I’m about to get on a boat and go on a swamp tour in New Orleans. It just proves the old saying, “You can talk Mike into anything.” Over the years, my friends have convinced me to jump out of an airplane, go whitewater rafting and sing karaoke.

The other day I told someone that my big Italian family was going to have a reunion in Dormont Park at the end of July. My friend asked, “Will there be food?”

My dentist retired. My friends joked, “He probably retired just off the money he made from you.” It’s true. I went through some tough times with my teeth. I spent a fortune at the dentist’s office.

Things are returning to normal. Normal-ish. Recently, I started seeing signs that we are nearing the end of our quarantine. It began a few weeks ago, I started running into friends and acquaintances on the street. Granted, I only saw half of their faces, but they were out in public again, mi…

Whenever someone starts a sentence with “I don’t really drink,” you know you are in for a story about mighty drunken escapades. The truth is ... I don’t really drink, but I did last weekend. I am still regretting it. There were unforeseen consequences.

Back in the Before Times, I was sitting outside in a café in Melbourne, Australia, with my friend Brian in March 2020. We were finishing up our lunch, talking and laughing, when Brian said, very calmly, “Don’t move.”

Now that I’m vaccinated, I have rejoined the gym. I’ve gone every day. In just one month, I’ve lost ... $35.

I don’t want to brag, but I’m all juiced up and ready to party. In other words, I have been fully vaccinated.

I fell asleep on the couch the other day, lights on, television blaring. I don’t know how it happened. I have believed myself to be a light sleeper. Apparently, I believe a lot of goofy things.

The other day I heard a woman tell her friend, “I got my shots.” It took all of my front teeth to bite down on my lip because I wanted to say, “Good girl. You still have to be careful about parvo, though.”

If you call me up and tell me you have a car problem, the best I can do is wait with you until AAA arrives. I don’t even know how to fix a flat tire. I don’t know jack about jacks. I’m afraid of them. I assume they will come crashing down on me and crush me under the car.

I spend some time every week researching weird news. I do it for you. So that you don’t have to visit all the strange corners of the internet. Somehow, these corners lead to porn ... so it’s more like a circle or a cul de sac. All roads lead to nakedness.

I have tried very hard not to be political in this column, but an issue of dire political consequence has come to my attention, and I must speak out. I can no longer hold my tongue: Pennsylvania does not have a state dinosaur. For shame.

Humor isn’t always easy. Certainly, 2020 was not cooperative, and 2021 is having a really wobbly start, but I’m looking on the bright side of life.

In early December, Santa came down my street in a horse-drawn carriage and gave out presents to the kids. Normally, the kids would sit on Santa’s lap. Because of COVID-19, we took a picture of my great-nephew in front of the sleigh. We were Santa adjacent.

I got an email from a co-worker who asked, “How’s your WFH situation?”

I am not known for my dexterity and poise. I am quite the opposite of those things. Grace is something I’d say before Christmas dinner. It’s definitely not a quality I possess. I’m not light on feet like a cat. I’m agile like a hippopotamus. In certain circles, the word “klutz” has been band…

I have reluctantly entered the 21st century, kicking and screaming. I bought a new cellphone. The latest one. I now own the iPhone 12S with 5G. All those letters and numbers impress my tech-savvy friends, but I have no idea what it means. I just have to say the letters and numbers in the rig…

October was rough. It is usually my favorite month. It’s got my birthday and Halloween. Two of my favorite holidays! My birthday, Oct. 11, often falls around, or near, Columbus Day. For years, I thought banks and post offices closed to celebrate me. Why wouldn’t they? I’m a national treasure.

When my alarm goes off, I get up, walk across the room and turn it off. It’s far away from me for two reasons. One, the electrical wiring in my room is screwy; the outlet by my bed shuts off when you turn the lights out. Two, it’s much harder to hit snooze and fall back asleep when you have …

It happened again. I walked into Starbucks, donned my mask and ordered my beverage: black, unsweetened iced tea. She must have seen me. She took my order and my credit card, but she continued to jabber to her coworker as if I wasn’t even there.