"That's a beautiful gun you've got...."
It had been a long time since Bridezilla had buried her handgun in her ficus tree pot at Prince and Prowling. Even though the Managing Attorney's attempt to blow his own brains out had failed because the gun wasn't loaded, it still made her feel awkward. Then came that awkward conversation about workplace violence with her boyfriend, Buddy Lee Trickham, after the Navy Yard massacre.
"He said where he grew up, shotguns were for hunting ducks and menacing trespassers!" exclaimed Bridezilla to the other members of Sense of Entitlement Anonymous (D.C. Chapter). "And rifles were for hunting deer, and anybody who carried a handgun was just a sissy-boy too scared to get in a fistfight! Well, I'm NOT a sissy-boy, and I DON'T want to feel awkward about my gun anymore!" wailed Bridezilla, pulling it carefully out of her Prada purse. "I cleaned and oiled it, like Wince had taught me, and I've got my bullets, and I am so thankful to Dick for inviting us to his home today for a special meeting with target practice afterwards!" She beamed at Dick Cheney (whose blood pressure was still rising from the sissy-boy remark), and used her gun like a finger to salute to him.
"Good for you!" said real estate tycoon, Calico Johnson (who kept having recurring dreams about machine-gunning Donald Trump to death--but there were reasons for that which we won't go into here). "Everybody keeps talking about that guy's security clearance as the problem, but people can go crazy like that!" (He snapped his fingers.) "They were in a military facility! Somebody should have shot back at him instantly! There are definitely not enough people carrying handguns."
"Tell me about it!" replied Congressman John Boehner. "If my Majority Whip were allowed to carry a gun, that goddamn Tea Party wouldn't be terrorizing my staff all the time!"
"And the real terrorists," said Cheney.
"You don't think the Tea Party are real terrorists?!" exclaimed Boehner. "You've been out of political office too long, my friend!" (He was sure his blackmailer was in the Tea Party, but he hadn't yet figured out who it was.)
"Are there real terrorists terrorizing your staff?" asked a member of N.U.T.T.Y. (Nannies United to Take Y-Chromosomes) to the Speaker of the House.
"You don't even remember 9/11, do you?" asked Cheney disdainfully, and the girl shrank bank from his mean-old-man glare. "But I suppose you've heard of those terrorists at the shopping mall in Kenya?!"
"Oh, yes!" said the girl (who had briefly dated Calico Johnson while waiting for her charge's father to get divorced and marry her). "People just out shopping, minding their own business, gunned down in cold blood!" She shuddered, and Luciano Talaverdi put his arm around her consolingly...but his eyes were fixed on Bridezilla.
Meanwhile, over at the impromptu memorial at the Navy Yard gate, television reporter Holly Gonightly was interviewing people as they came by to leave flowers, ribbons, and hand-written notes. ("Are you here for the coworkers or for the family members?" "If you could speak to the shooter now, what would you say to him? Do you think we should have more gun control?")
A few yards away, Washington Post "Metro" reporter Perry Winkle was asking similar questions, followed closely by several adolescents on an Urban Guerrilla field trip.
"She's too fat for television," whispered one of them "She should be at the Post, and you should be on TV!"
Winkle turned around and slapped the boy. "What is wrong with you?!"
"You just used violence!" said a startled girl, who had been on several Urban Guerrilla field trips with Winkle before.
Winkle had been dying to punch somebody for days, but he didn't know how to explain that. "I'm sorry--I lost my temper. Just think how much worse it would have been if I had a gun!" (But the boy was too angry to hear that.)
Sitting on a campstool nearby, conspiracy theorist Glenn Michael Beckmann was also reporting on the scene--using his new laptop, secret identity, and coded "lifestyle blog" language distributed only to his loyal blog leaders. "White and red flowers in abundance, but NO SIGNS OF rose petals, chokecherry twigs, muslin handkerchiefs, or witch-shaped Pez dispensers. I can smell Old Spice and Garnier Fructis shampoo, but nobody--I REPEAT, NOBODY--is wearing German perfume. No clear pattern emerges in footwear, but this is to be expected when the seasons are changing." (That last sentence was not in code--Beckmann just had an obsession with linking people based on their footwear.) "ABSOLUTELY NO DANCING, but there is one man speaking loudly about Be-Bop."
A few miles to the north, Angela de la Paz was examining a hemp baby sling at the Green Festival, followed by a lovesick Solomon Kane. "So you don't use guns anymore?" asked the contract killer.
"I've got other skills," said Angela, who wasn't sure yet what to do with Kane.
"They said in Afghanistan--"
"I don't want to talk about Afghanistan," she said, strapping the sling around herself.
"So you're just gonna give it all up because of this baby?" asked a befuddled Kane. "Or are the other rumors true--the ones that say you don't need guns because you can use magic?" He pulled out his wallet to purchase the baby sling for her.
"Thank you!" Angela smiled sweetly at him as they headed over to the food vendors. "President Obama preaches against gun violence in the U.S., but he sends jets and drones to bomb people everywhere else he can get away with bombing them. 'Might makes right': that's what Dr. Raj says. If the message to Assad in Syria is, 'do what we say, or we will bomb you', how is that different than a gang member in Chicago pointing a gun and saying, 'do what I say, or I'll shoot you', huh? It's all the same."
Kane (who didn't like to remember how he had gotten into this business, but now did it for the money) replied, "it's not all the same. Do you really think shooting Osama bin Laden in the head is the same as shooting a Chicago teenager in the head?"
"There's a lot of people willing to kill--kill for money, kill for revenge, kill for their country. But where are the people willing to die?" she asked.
"What would you die for?" Kane asked her.
"For this baby...for people I care about."
"But nobody can kill you--that's what everybody says."
"They've killed my heart a hundred times," she said. "I tried to fix that by killing bad guys, but it's like trying to wipe cockroaches off the face of the earth. You can't kill them all."
"But if you don't kill as many as you can--"
"You need to change them into something else--that's the only way," she said, and her magic washed over Solomon Kane like a warm tropical breeze.
Back at Dick Cheney's place, the members of Sense of Entitlement Anonymous (D.C. Chapter) headed down to his bunker shooting range. Each aisle had its own video projector so that you could make your target look like anybody you wanted. (Cheney often projected Hillary Clinton, but he wasn't going to choose her today.)
"That's a beautiful gun you've got," said Leonardo Talaverdi, with his best bedroom voice and bedroom eyes. He placed his hand over Bridezilla's and slowly pulled the gun out of her hand. "But I think you can handle something bigger--something Italian." He placed his Beretta into her hand with a caress. "Why don't you try this one." Bridezilla felt giddy, and fumbled with the touchscreen until she managed to pull up a nurse labeled "Obamacare". "Go on!" smiled Talaverdi seductively, as he stepped back to give her space...and admire her. (A month of fruitless Internet dating had interfered so severely with the economist's professional duties at the Federal Reserve Board that the Camelot Society had staged an intervention on him Thursday, asking him if he were on drugs, or was he deliberately trying to sabotage the financial prognostications of the Open Market Committee? It was then his thoughts had turned to Bridezilla--she was always eager to get married, and she was the perfect blend of professional and trophy wife to give his professional and personal standing in Washington the push it needed.) He smiled as the flustered woman shot wildly at the heart and mind of "Obamacare" (missing widely). We'll be married before Bernanke is even gone!
Behind the wall of bullet-riddled target sheets, Cheney's real estate demon oohed and ahhed in pleasure at the orgy of violence and hatred saturating his body. Moving in here was the best decision I ever made!
"He said where he grew up, shotguns were for hunting ducks and menacing trespassers!" exclaimed Bridezilla to the other members of Sense of Entitlement Anonymous (D.C. Chapter). "And rifles were for hunting deer, and anybody who carried a handgun was just a sissy-boy too scared to get in a fistfight! Well, I'm NOT a sissy-boy, and I DON'T want to feel awkward about my gun anymore!" wailed Bridezilla, pulling it carefully out of her Prada purse. "I cleaned and oiled it, like Wince had taught me, and I've got my bullets, and I am so thankful to Dick for inviting us to his home today for a special meeting with target practice afterwards!" She beamed at Dick Cheney (whose blood pressure was still rising from the sissy-boy remark), and used her gun like a finger to salute to him.
"Good for you!" said real estate tycoon, Calico Johnson (who kept having recurring dreams about machine-gunning Donald Trump to death--but there were reasons for that which we won't go into here). "Everybody keeps talking about that guy's security clearance as the problem, but people can go crazy like that!" (He snapped his fingers.) "They were in a military facility! Somebody should have shot back at him instantly! There are definitely not enough people carrying handguns."
"Tell me about it!" replied Congressman John Boehner. "If my Majority Whip were allowed to carry a gun, that goddamn Tea Party wouldn't be terrorizing my staff all the time!"
"And the real terrorists," said Cheney.
"You don't think the Tea Party are real terrorists?!" exclaimed Boehner. "You've been out of political office too long, my friend!" (He was sure his blackmailer was in the Tea Party, but he hadn't yet figured out who it was.)
"Are there real terrorists terrorizing your staff?" asked a member of N.U.T.T.Y. (Nannies United to Take Y-Chromosomes) to the Speaker of the House.
"You don't even remember 9/11, do you?" asked Cheney disdainfully, and the girl shrank bank from his mean-old-man glare. "But I suppose you've heard of those terrorists at the shopping mall in Kenya?!"
"Oh, yes!" said the girl (who had briefly dated Calico Johnson while waiting for her charge's father to get divorced and marry her). "People just out shopping, minding their own business, gunned down in cold blood!" She shuddered, and Luciano Talaverdi put his arm around her consolingly...but his eyes were fixed on Bridezilla.
Meanwhile, over at the impromptu memorial at the Navy Yard gate, television reporter Holly Gonightly was interviewing people as they came by to leave flowers, ribbons, and hand-written notes. ("Are you here for the coworkers or for the family members?" "If you could speak to the shooter now, what would you say to him? Do you think we should have more gun control?")
A few yards away, Washington Post "Metro" reporter Perry Winkle was asking similar questions, followed closely by several adolescents on an Urban Guerrilla field trip.
"She's too fat for television," whispered one of them "She should be at the Post, and you should be on TV!"
Winkle turned around and slapped the boy. "What is wrong with you?!"
"You just used violence!" said a startled girl, who had been on several Urban Guerrilla field trips with Winkle before.
Winkle had been dying to punch somebody for days, but he didn't know how to explain that. "I'm sorry--I lost my temper. Just think how much worse it would have been if I had a gun!" (But the boy was too angry to hear that.)
Sitting on a campstool nearby, conspiracy theorist Glenn Michael Beckmann was also reporting on the scene--using his new laptop, secret identity, and coded "lifestyle blog" language distributed only to his loyal blog leaders. "White and red flowers in abundance, but NO SIGNS OF rose petals, chokecherry twigs, muslin handkerchiefs, or witch-shaped Pez dispensers. I can smell Old Spice and Garnier Fructis shampoo, but nobody--I REPEAT, NOBODY--is wearing German perfume. No clear pattern emerges in footwear, but this is to be expected when the seasons are changing." (That last sentence was not in code--Beckmann just had an obsession with linking people based on their footwear.) "ABSOLUTELY NO DANCING, but there is one man speaking loudly about Be-Bop."
A few miles to the north, Angela de la Paz was examining a hemp baby sling at the Green Festival, followed by a lovesick Solomon Kane. "So you don't use guns anymore?" asked the contract killer.
"I've got other skills," said Angela, who wasn't sure yet what to do with Kane.
"They said in Afghanistan--"
"I don't want to talk about Afghanistan," she said, strapping the sling around herself.
"So you're just gonna give it all up because of this baby?" asked a befuddled Kane. "Or are the other rumors true--the ones that say you don't need guns because you can use magic?" He pulled out his wallet to purchase the baby sling for her.
"Thank you!" Angela smiled sweetly at him as they headed over to the food vendors. "President Obama preaches against gun violence in the U.S., but he sends jets and drones to bomb people everywhere else he can get away with bombing them. 'Might makes right': that's what Dr. Raj says. If the message to Assad in Syria is, 'do what we say, or we will bomb you', how is that different than a gang member in Chicago pointing a gun and saying, 'do what I say, or I'll shoot you', huh? It's all the same."
Kane (who didn't like to remember how he had gotten into this business, but now did it for the money) replied, "it's not all the same. Do you really think shooting Osama bin Laden in the head is the same as shooting a Chicago teenager in the head?"
"There's a lot of people willing to kill--kill for money, kill for revenge, kill for their country. But where are the people willing to die?" she asked.
"What would you die for?" Kane asked her.
"For this baby...for people I care about."
"But nobody can kill you--that's what everybody says."
"They've killed my heart a hundred times," she said. "I tried to fix that by killing bad guys, but it's like trying to wipe cockroaches off the face of the earth. You can't kill them all."
"But if you don't kill as many as you can--"
"You need to change them into something else--that's the only way," she said, and her magic washed over Solomon Kane like a warm tropical breeze.
Back at Dick Cheney's place, the members of Sense of Entitlement Anonymous (D.C. Chapter) headed down to his bunker shooting range. Each aisle had its own video projector so that you could make your target look like anybody you wanted. (Cheney often projected Hillary Clinton, but he wasn't going to choose her today.)
"That's a beautiful gun you've got," said Leonardo Talaverdi, with his best bedroom voice and bedroom eyes. He placed his hand over Bridezilla's and slowly pulled the gun out of her hand. "But I think you can handle something bigger--something Italian." He placed his Beretta into her hand with a caress. "Why don't you try this one." Bridezilla felt giddy, and fumbled with the touchscreen until she managed to pull up a nurse labeled "Obamacare". "Go on!" smiled Talaverdi seductively, as he stepped back to give her space...and admire her. (A month of fruitless Internet dating had interfered so severely with the economist's professional duties at the Federal Reserve Board that the Camelot Society had staged an intervention on him Thursday, asking him if he were on drugs, or was he deliberately trying to sabotage the financial prognostications of the Open Market Committee? It was then his thoughts had turned to Bridezilla--she was always eager to get married, and she was the perfect blend of professional and trophy wife to give his professional and personal standing in Washington the push it needed.) He smiled as the flustered woman shot wildly at the heart and mind of "Obamacare" (missing widely). We'll be married before Bernanke is even gone!
Behind the wall of bullet-riddled target sheets, Cheney's real estate demon oohed and ahhed in pleasure at the orgy of violence and hatred saturating his body. Moving in here was the best decision I ever made!
posted by washingtonwaterwoman | 1:53 PM
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