Amherst, NY—Eighteen months ago Larry Lazaroni fell from a ladder while hanging Christmas lights at his Frankenhauser Road home in Amherst. Lazaroni suffered head trauma as a result and has been receiving ongoing treatment including medication therapy.
While Lazaroni has shown steady improvement and is slowly returning to normal life he has occasionally strayed from his medication regimen leading him to make inappropriate advances toward some of the female residents on the block. One neighbor, Dot Donger, is upset that during these episodes Lazaroni has only knocked on her door once to chat her up.
“I take care of myself. I do my kegels. I go to spin class. But for some reason Larry never seems to stop and ask me if I have onions in my back pocket because my ass is so fine it makes him want to cry like he does Harper and Zuri from up the block,” said Donger. “Granted, I’m not young as Harper or as exotic as Zuri, but I have game. I mean, there’s the guy who calls the numbers at BINGO, Eddie—he checks me out all the time during 30 Ball. Why not Larry?”
A survey of neighbors provided some hints as to why even a man in the throes of a psychotic break might avoid her. “She overshares,” said one neighbor who didn’t want to be named for fear that they might have to engage with Donger. “You get past hello and she launches into one of last night’s dreams where she’s in a Mongolian Village in the 5th Century and the warriors are passing her around like a hot bowl of rice. Then she’ll ask you pointed questions like: ‘Did you ever want to get passed around like a hot bowl of rice, say by the Wayans brothers? But not Marlon, he’s not that cute and he was terrible in Scary Movie .
Another anonymous neighbor noted that she’s a real busy body. If you park on the street instead of your driveway she wants to know why. If you switch out your rubber hose to one of those new fabric ones she’ll notice and want to have a long drawn out conversation about it. She’ll stalk your Facebook page and ask who the people in your pictures are and why you donated to a certain “Go Fund Me.”
Lazaroni said the one time he talked to Donger during one of these episodes it brought him back to reality. “I talked to her once when I fell off the wagon and she went on and on with zero context about some Netflix series she was binging—it was really painful. It made me want to triple lindy into a bottle of Phenobarbital like I was Greg Louganis or something. But somehow when I don’t take my meds and have no guardrails I still know to avoid her.”
Donger complained that life wasn’t fair and she was as deserving of attention as the next person when someone is in the throes of a manic episode.
