Washington Horror Blog

SEMI-FICTIONAL CHRONICLE of the EVIL THAT INFECTS WASHINGTON, D.C. To read Prologue and Character Guide, please see www.washingtonhorrorblog.com, updated 6/6//2017.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

George W. Bush Monument Committee?

Bush Monument

Dear Friends:

We have the distinguished honor of being on the committee to raise $5,000,000 for a monument to George W. Bush. The committee originally wanted to put him on Mt. Rushmore until we discovered there was not enough room for two more faces.

We then decided to erect a statue of George in the Washington, DC, Hall of Fame. We were in a quandary as to where the statue should be placed. It was not proper to place it beside the statue of George Washington, who never told a lie, or beside Richard Nixon, who never told the truth, since George could never tell the difference.

We finally decided to place it beside Christopher Columbus, the greatest Republican of them all. He left not knowing where he was going, and when he got there he did not know where he was. He returned not knowing where he had been, decimated the well-being of the majority of the population while he was there, and did it all on someone else's money.

Thank you,

George W. Bush Monument Committee


(courtesy of http://www.guy-sports.com/humor/saints/columbus_day_jokes.htm)

**************************************
Washington Water Woman remains overworked on her day job but hopes to return to blogging next weekend.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

The Diary of Nick and Costas

NICK: Yesterday we drove Congressman Herrmark to the airport for his "fact-finding" trip to the Marianas Islands.

COSTAS: Our cousin Ann Bishis already explained that this meant he would be patronizing underage prostitutes who were victims of human trafficking that were lied to about getting good "American" jobs in the Marianas factories. We have been discussing whether this job is really better than working for the Greek mafia.

NICK: I still think it is!

COSTAS: Maybe.

NICK: We just got back from Chinatown and saw some American prostitutes.

COSTAS: They might not be--and it wasn't really Chinatown.

NICK: Close to Chinatown! One woman had her shirt off and was jumping up and down on the street corner, making her large breasts bounce up and down like crazy.

COSTAS: The prostitutes are not like that in Greece.

NICK: I think it's the crack, no?

COSTAS: Or the meth--remember Ann told us about the meth.

NICK: Oh, the meth.

COSTAS: Before Chinatown, we went to Macy's with Ann because she wanted to buy new makeup before her vacation.

NICK: She takes vacation when Congressman takes vacation.

COSTAS: Like us! Too cheap to take his bodyguards to Marianas Islands with him!

NICK: We went to Mac counter, and crazy gay guy with super spiky hair put makeup samples on Ann!

COSTAS: Gay man putting makeup on woman! I think when we go back to Greece, we should act like gay men, too--open beauty salon, women love it.

NICK: Crazy spiky hair! Blue and purple! Then gay phlebotomist walks up to counter!

COSTAS: We didn't know he was phlebotomist--Ann told us later, "that's the gay phlebotomist from the lab". Black gay phlebotomist. There are no gay phlebotomists in Greece.

NICK: How do you know?!

COSTAS: Alright, maybe, but no black gay phlebotomists in Greece!

NICK: We are not really on vacation--we are supposed to repaint, clean chimney, do the garden, repave the driveway, fix up the car--all sorts of things!

COSTAS: But he's still paying us for the week. If we finish in three days, rest is vacation. We can go pick up tourists at Cherry Blossom Festival.

NICK: You know--the kind that like identical twins, ha ha!

COSTAS: What a great country.

NICK: But seriously, we are loving America! Such big things happen here. Congressman Herrmark voted to suspend money for National Public Radio.

COSTAS: Ann said it was only one ten-thousandth of one percent of the federal budget, but it's the principle of the thing.

NICK: Take that, Big Bird!

COSTAS: I like Big Bird!

NICK: Yes, sad day. Big Bird must die so that U.S. can keep spending ten billion per month in Afghanistan.

COSTAS: Big Bird should go to Afghanistan, find Osama Bin Laden, come back hero of U.S.A.!

NICK: No, Big Bird must fly fighter planes to Libya!

COSTAS: No, Big Bird must pick up leaking nuclear power plant in Japan and fly it to South Pole.

NICK: Now you are just talking crazy. You are still drunk! Go to bed.

COSTAS: Fine!


Washington Water Woman is exhausted out of her mind after a rough week and hopes to take back her blog next week....

Sunday, March 13, 2011

She Who Must Be Obeyed

Congressman Herrmark was up at dawn, something his Greek bodyguards had not expected the day the clocks lost an hour. It wasn't as if Herrmark expected them to be up, since they all relied on the burglar alarm system at night, but still they would have preferred to have made the coffee and microwave pancakes as soon as they heard him stirring. Instead, when they raced downstairs to see what the stirrings were so early this morning, they were shocked to find him reading the funny papers and eating a bowl of cereal and milk--shocked both because he had managed by himself to disarm the burglar alarm before opening the front door to get the newspaper and because he had mistaken a box of Fiddle Faddle for breakfast cereal. "Mornin', boys," he said without looking up from "Rhymes With Orange", which he always studied carefully for subliminal subversion. They greeted him, and Nick put on the coffee while Costas got out the microwave waffles (a Sunday tradition in the bachelor household). Herrmark was tapping his leather slipper nervously on the Italian marble floor, still shaken up about the nightmare he had in which the Islamist hearings on Capitol Hill had turned up proof that he was at that Muammar Gaddafi New Year's Eve party on St. Bart's with Mariah Carey. There were watchdogs everywhere (more than Joseph McCarthy could have imagined in his wildest dreams), and it had never been less pleasant to enjoy the perks of office. Here it was, March already, the clocks changing (!), and he had yet to attach a single earmark to any legislation, or plan his first Congressionsal research trip to a tropical island yet. Hell, I'd be lucky to put together a fact-finding mission to Italy or a troops visit to that U.S. warship in the Mediterranean Sea! Not until Congress authorized aid for refugees, anyway. Japan might be a pleasant visit at this time of year, but radioactive Japan? Nah, I'll leave that to somebody else. Tunisia is seaside, but it's fairly stable--the only fact-finding mission I could do there would be in a refugee camp, and to hell with that. He let out a big sigh, and Nick silently pushed a steaming cup of coffee in front of the Congressman's face. "Thanks, son." (He usually called them "son" because he could not tell the twins apart, but they were used to it since that's what their own parents called them.) He noticed a loose thread on his silk robe, and the thought occurred to him that it might be time to plan another fact-finding trip to the "garment factories" in the Marianas--none of the current watchdogs had that on their radar screen right now. "She's a bitch," he said out loud, without realizing he had done so. (He was referring to fiscal discipline, but the twin bodyguards just shrugged at each other and kept eating.) "If only I could find a warm, tropical island that had hydrofracking...."

Several miles away, the Heurich Society was meeting to discuss Project Prometheus and Project Cinderella. Oil prices had gone up dramatically, just as predicted, but revolutionary staying power in the Mideast was uncertain at best. Condoleezza Rice was again telling them over the speakerphone that they were putting too much reliance on young agent Angela de la Paz, but Henry Samuelson would hear none of it. "She's inside Project R.O.D.H.A.M.," he snarled, "and the Egyptian army calls her 'she who must be obeyed!'" The first part was true, though it might be argued that she had passed them more information than vice versa; the latter was something he has mistranslated from a recorded transmission, since what the Egyptian army actually called her was "she whose gaze must be avoided" because anybody that ripped her veil off reportedly did not live to identify her. Rice cackled over the speakerphone that there were too many variables and they needed more agents on the ground, but Samuelson countered that the whole point was that Angela de la Paz was going to be subverting Project R.O.D.H.A.M. to the Heurich Society purposes. Debate around the table became vigrous, and Samuelson fell silent, sullenly chewing his pecan coffeecake and taking notes about who at the table was with him and who was against him.

A few miles to the east, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton carefully examined an antique bunny flower vase as a possible Easter gift for Chelsea while Charles Wu looked on encouragingly. "It's the Year of the Rabbit," he offered. At first she thought this was a code for something, then she remembered he was talking about the Chinese zodiac. "Let me get it for you," Wu said, and he pulled his wallet out and gestured to the Eastern Market vendor manning the booth. (It was not a bribe, but rather a gesture to assist Clinton in remaining reticent behind her sunglasses and Chicago Cubs baseball cap.) The rabbit safely ensconced in bubble wrap and tucked under the arm of Wu, the two walked on. "You know the dangers inherent in your mission this week?" Clinton nodded. "Aside from your official security, we now have 43 Reserve Officers deployed in Tunisia and 311 in Egypt--mostly men, but a few women. One of the female agents in Egypt is a double-agent, but we know who she's working for, and we decided it better to keep her--"

"Are you out of your mind?!" Clinton interjected.

"Forgive me, Madam Secretary, but we know precisely who she's working for--it's a secret society here in Washington. And so far she has not actually done anything counter to our interests."

"What society?"

"The Heurich Society," Wu said.

"That's a Condoleeza Rice operation--"

"Madam Secretary, I can assure you that Rice's influence in it has waned dramatically. Their interests in the Mideast are ultimately financial, but their operative's actions are useful to us right now. There's also a strong chance she can be turned altogether--some think she's barely 17. The Egyptian army is enthralled by her, and yet they are loathe to talk about her because she's a girl, so her actions have a lot of power. She won't be on your guard detail in Egypt--she'll be isolated at the margin during that time. She's fed us a lot of intelligence on the Egyptian military, and it's all been true."

The Secretary of State walked on slowly in silence for a few minutes. "Charles," she said at last, "do you really understand how much I have going against me on this trip, simply because I'm a woman?"

"I wouldn't be serving Project R.O.D.H.A.M. if I didn't, Madam Secrtary." This was a lie, but actually he did understand. Wu, who had adored his mother as much as any son could adore a mother, and worshipped women his whole life with the simple ardor of a young man repeatedly enthralled by the siren call of the fairer sex in its most fundamental essence, could never understand why any sensible men would construct societies in which beautiful faces were hidden behind veils and warm bodies were more a myth than a reality. This would have been enough! But then, as it turned out, there were actually women intelligent, insightful, and persistent--and endowed with a host of other qualities that entitled them and even impelled them to positions of leadership that he could not help but admire. Women like Hillary Rodham Clinton--whose will he had once obeyed as a means to an end, but now obeyed because he trusted it. "It's going to be a long, long engagement in the Mideast, and some of the dominos might fall in the wrong direction, but this is our best chance," Wu added. (By "our best chance", he realized he was talking about issues that seemed very remote from the Hong Kong issues that had started his espionage career so long ago, but even China was slowly coming to see that there are times you don't want to end up on the wrong side of history.)

A mile away, Dr. Devi Rajatala had received a surprise visit from her rich cousin, and he couldn't stop talking about his girlfriend, Bridezilla. Rajatala knew that several in their personal circle had already named the girl "she who must be obeyed", and Dr. Raj was debating whether she should admit this to him. "I poured M&Ms into a bowl Friday night for us to eat while watching the video," her cousin said, "and after I put my hand in the bowl, she took out a disinfectant wipe from the dispenser and rubbed some M&Ms on it before eating them."

Dr. Raj fought back a gag as she handed her cousin a weed whacker and tried to make him do something useful in her National Arboretum elm tree study area. "You know that is toxic?" she said, and he nodded. "Did you tell her?" He shook his head. "She cannot be the mother of your children!" exclaimed Dr. Raj, almost wincing at how old-fashioned her words sounded, but still certain they needed to be said. "She will make your children sick doing such things!" Dr. Raj also wanted to tell him that Bridezilla is crazy, but this seemed too cruel.

"But I can get a green card if I marry her!" he exclaimed. And this was true, but he said it because he was embarrassed to admit he was very hung up on the girl, and wildly nursing hopes she would get better someday.

"You have developed the most important virtual reality war games system the Pentagon has--you can get a green card without her!" said the arborist/biologist as she scraped some bark samples for the laboratory. She noticed he still had not pulled any weeds for her.

"That's not true!" he argued, although he was not entirely certain on the point. "Anyway, I already asked her to marry me, and she said yes." Dr. Raj dropped her container on the ground. "We're getting married in June. I'm calling Mom and Dad tonight so they can get a visa and book their tickets." Dr. Raj said nothing. "Of course, the wedding has to be here--she's scared of...Indian germs, I mean, tropical epidemics." Dr. Raj picked up her bark sample and stared at it more intently than she had ever stared at a container of bark before in her life.

A couple of miles away, Golden Fawn's grandmother was sitting silently in the canoe, staring down into the depths of the Potomac River as Marcos Vazquez paddled slowly past Theodore Roosevelt Island so that she could have her first look at she-who-must-be-obeyed. Ardua had cramps all over from the baby demon growing inside her, and groaned almost pitifully at the affront of this newest visitor. She reached up to knock over the canoe, but the grandmother rapidly lifted her hand and stopped the blow, which left only a small ripple at the stern. Vazquez looked at his wife, then kept on paddling.

COMING UP: Congressman Herrmark plans a junket, and International Development Machine "wins" a $5,000,000 grant from a mysterious donor.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

On the down side, gloom; on the up side, doom!

The handsome young man moved languidly from room to room, taking the party all in--colors shining, jewels glittering, perfumes wafting with scents of rose and lilac. A woman with cropped black hair, scarlet lipstick and a midnight blue sleeveless flapper dress tossed her peacock feather boa back over her shoulder and winked at him. Nervous, he looked down at her shoes, which were shiny black patent leather skimmers with black chiffon bows attached jauntily on the outer edges like wings about to give the shoes flight. The record on the Victrola changed to an upbeat jazz number, and people started to dance. The music was too loud, so he wandered off to find a quiet place. He saw a room labeled "Coco Chanel", and opened the door to find the floor covered in shoes and the room overflowing with clothing draped on hangers, racks, shelves, and every piece of furniture. Vanity and dresser drawers were half-open with long strings of pearls, rubies, and sapphires spilling out. He heard humming in the bathroom and walked in to see Coco Chanel wrapped in oily gauze like a mummy from her neck to her toes, fully immersed in a steaming hot bath. Her eyes were closed, and he quietly walked back into the bedroom, where he saw ephemeral phantoms trying on clothing. "This is nice," one of the female ghosts said to him, "but your own wife will prefer Yves Saint Laurent when her time comes." "When is that?" he asked. "After you fail in Cuba, but before you succeed in Chile," she said. "He hasn't been born yet," a male ghost whispered to the female ghost. "Yes, I have!" the handsome young man declared. "You're not even a twinkle in Ardua's eye yet." "I run this place!" the handsome young man insisted. "The Heurich Society has been at the Brewmaster's Castle since--"

"NEVER!"

Henry Samuelson jolted awake, and immediately saw the Chair of the Heurich Society staring at him. "Oh, God, what did I miss?" he thought.

"What did I miss?" asked Liv Cigemeier, who had finally come back from the office and needed to pretend she cared about the basketball game her husband was watching on TV, but he turned it off. The tables were turned, and now he knew how it felt to sit in their suddenly gloomy Silver Spring apartment surrounded by gray skies while his spouse was the one who went into the office.

"I'm glad you're back!" he smiled and got up to embrace her, but she didn't smile back. "What's wrong?"

"These new International Development Machine contracts for Afghanistan were signed without the contract deliverables for women's rights," she said. Her husband knew Liv was the one who had drafted the proposal that won the contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development. "They were part of the bid, and now they're gone! My boss says he was told informally that the State Department is working on women's rights with a more subtle approach now, but the whole point is to stand up for women in Afghanistan--loudly and strongly!" Her voice broke, and tears welled up in her eyes.

"Honey," he said, "you know that's not REALLY why we're in Afghanistan."

"I know!" she said. "But you can still do the right thing for the wrong reason! I don't wanna do the wrong thing." She sank into his embrace, and he decided the only mutually beneficial thing to do with the rest of the rainy day was spend it trying to get her pregnant again.

"I don't wanna do the wrong thing," said President Obama, staring out the window at the rain which was preventing the arrival of the helicopter, and then at the surprising sight of the twin pre-schoolers running around the White House backyard in yellow rain ponchos and red polka-dot rubber boots. (It was one thing to let Bo out to play in the rain because Bo really cannot stand being cooped up in the White House for long stretches of time, but these little children?) "I wanna be President for the whole country, but it's like a goddam civil war! We've got governors' going to war against unions, John Boehner working so hard to please his Halliburton and Koch Industries campaign contributors that he's brought back plastic and styrofoam to un-green the House cafeteria, and these deranged Tea Party leaders who are already slamming Boehner for not doing enough to slash the budget! We're spending billions a week on overseas wars and Medicare fraud, and they're slashing the already puny budgets for public broadcasting and FEMA. FEMA, for God's sakes! The whole thing's totally screwed up. I can't win this thing by reasoning with the American people anymore. I've gotta figure out if intervening in Libya to protect refugees is going to win hearts and minds or backfire--like everything else we've ever done in the Arab world! And we've got Sarah Palin out there with nothing better to do than criticize my wife for trying to take unhealthy food out of our school lunch programs! I swear, I have never hated a woman the way I hate that woman! Half of Congress is made up of millionaires, and the other half are propped up by corporate contributions, the Supreme Court is useless, everything depends on me and I have more death threats than any U.S. President has ever had to face." Instead of building to a crescendo, his voice had slowly fallen until the last few words were barely audible as they escaped his lips.

"Only hate can conquer hate!"

"What?!" President Obama turned to his Chief of Staff, but he shrugged and said he hadn't said anything. Up in the corner, a White House ghost who had been burning for revenge against his slavemasters for two-hundred years grinned uncontrollably.

Several miles away, Glenn Michael Beckmann was also grinning uncontrollably. The Hunter-Gatherer Society is gaining influence around the country, and institutions of namby-pamby nanny-state "civilization" are feeling its wrath. God has even struck down the National Christmas Tree to prove that Obama did not deserve his house to be graced by its inspiring presence! Surely my militia comrades will soon be ready to take to the streets, armed and righteous?  If those God-damned Arab satanists are willing to die for their causes, so much more should Americans! (He was typing furiously on his computer now, watching the blog words fill up his computer screen.) I have seen the future, and it is OURS! (He paused to take a swig of Jack Daniels.) Silence tells me secretly... everything... EVERYthing! (Deep beneath Beckmann's Southwest Plaza apartment, the real estate demon living in the parking garage cooed with contentment--the man was like putty in its hands.)

Willing to die? On the other side of the Potomac, Dick Cheney read Beckmann's words, and chills ran down his spine. Why am I trying so hard to stay alive? he thought, contemplating his latest heart scare. The Heurich Society won't let me back in. Maybe I could make a difference in this Hunter-Gatherer Society! Sarah Palin may be its president, but if I did a suicide mission, I would be a martyr forever for the--

"Dick? Oh, there you are." Lynn Cheney walked into his study to give him his afternoon snack (sugar-free cherry jello, fat-free cottage cheese, a bunch of grapes, and whole wheat crackers. She kissed him on the cheek, and he smelled her Giorgio perfume briefly before she walked away, snapping her heels on her Prada house sandals.

A catbird sitting outside Cheney's window briefly trilled an imitation of the click-clack shoe sound, then flew off to report back to Ardua of the Potomac--though nothing seemed to cheer Ardua up anymore. The starlings said it was the best of times and worst of times for Ardua, but that type of analysis was above the catbird's paygrade.

NEXT WEEK: SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED!