Background: The year is 1976. A 13-year old Umberto Zappia's face is inches away from his family's Zenith Console TV. The red uniforms of FC Bayern are reflecting off the lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses. He is watching 'Soccer Made In Germany'. Umberto's parents warn him repeatedly about sitting too close to the screen. The dangers are obvious: burned retinae, impotence, and possible seizures.

Nostradamus couldn't have predicted what happened next. Umberto watched FC Bayern's Karl-Heinz Rummenigge collect the ball 25-yards out, beat two defenders, and as he moved to his right, strike the ball. The ball, no rotation, knuckles into the top right corner. (Any reader with a weak stomach should be warned that what follows is not pretty, but it is vital to the story.) Umberto had never seen anything more beautiful, not even Lulu Vinciguerra from down the block. The beauty is so pure it induces a seizure, the kind of seizure that is written about in nursing journals and medical textbooks. Umberto's mother, while assembling lasagna in the kitchen, hears the commotion in the den. When she reaches him, he is still; the fit lasts only for seconds, but the effects will last a lifetime.

Umberto soon realizes that what happened to him is more than a simple seizure. During his convulsion, his glasses were thrown across the room. When he opens his eyes he can see his mother perfectly. He can see the picture of Pope Paul VI above the door. His mother helps him into the kitchen. (The reader should know that in 1976, nobody called an ambulance.) As Umberto sits at the kitchen table to collect himself, his mother continues her work. As she cleans, she reaches over the sink to start the garbage disposal. It starts to hum, but the blades are not spinning. Feeling better, Umberto rises from his chair and walks over to the sink. He looks at the disposal motor and the blades begin to sing. Something tells him he has fixed it. He doesn't know how or why. He asks his mother where she put the blender - the one that only whips but doesn't puree. After looking at the blender, all the speeds work, even the puree setting. Appliance after appliance is fixed; neighbor's dishwashers, electric shavers. The list goes on and on.

Soon, people are lined-up around the block, waiting to have their appliance serviced by "the weird kid who can fix appliances just by looking at them." Umberto grows tired of being used. One afternoon he is looking at a Kenmore washing machine. The owner is rather impatient and asks Umberto to hurry. "I have a date to go roller skating." Umberto becomes enraged. He stares at the Kenmore with such conviction that it rises off of the ground and lands on the foot of the owner. "Doesn't look like you will be doing any roller skating today," thinks Umberto. Umberto decides to hone his newfound skill at the Sears down the street. When no one is looking, he lifts a washer and dryer set and moves it to the automotive section and back. Then it happens: The event that was destined. Masked men (2) break into Sears, order all the customers onto the floor and demand money from the cash register. Umberto happens to be next to a 29.9 cu ft Frigidaire chest freezer. He waits for the two men to get close to each other and in an instant entombs the would-be robbers. A superhero is born.

Umberto spent the rest of his childhood trying to fit in. Occasionally, he would fix a drinking fountain or a furnace at school, but his secret remained safe. He decided in college that he would become a soccer journalist. Upon graduation from a prestigious "J" school, he started writing for jimmyconrad.com

SOCCER BACKGROUND: Father played left back for the Detroit Cougars

JIMMY CONNECTION: Fixed his garbage disposal

FUN FACT: Has never purchased an extended warranty on an appliance.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author's, and not of JimmyConrad.com staff or of Jimmy Conrad, though we most likely find the subject matter both entertaining and humorous.

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