A Hairy Tale (in lieu of a fairy tale!)

Washington Water Woman is worn out from hosting out-of-town guests and serving as President Obama's "anger translator" at last night's White House Correspondents' Dinner, so she will have to wait until next week to update your favorite stories and characters in Washington Horror Blog.

Posted for your pleasure this week is a silly story written by Washington Water Woman and a couple of her friends (in one hour!) for a recent D.C. story slam.  Enjoy!

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"The Barber Who Fell Down and Then Fell Up" (by three amigos)

Harvey, the barber, was in a terrible mood.  Everybody had called in sick, and he had been on his feet all day.  Nobody had been there all day to clean up, so a carpet of hair had blown into the customers' faces every time the door had opened.  Harvey's allergy to hair was normally rather mild, but he had never had so much hair blow into his face before.  He even had some customers vomit.  Then one of the customers called the health department, which immediately dispatched an inspector on motorcycle--who promptly closed the barber shop down because of the excessive hair and vomit.  (You see, there are regulations about how much hair and vomit there can be.)  When he was ready to leave the shop in disgust, he slid on the vomit, fell down, hit his head on the barber chair foot rest, and blacked out.

When he came to, he was at the Hirshorn, which was curious because he hated modern art.  Then an angry man was yelling at him because Harvey had mouthed off to the angry man's girlfriend, a performance artist whose act involved gluing hair to spectator faces.  Harvey ran away, and as he was outside trying to catch his breath, he realized he was very hungry, and went off to find the nearest restaurant.  Unfortunately, they were out of everything except salad, and he had never eaten a salad in his life.  He reluctantly ordered a salad, and sat down to eat it.

Then the performance artist came in to get her favorite salad, and saw her heckler.  She confronted him, but he had no memory of ever seeing her before.  As she scolded him, Harvey realized she was the performance artist whose angry boyfriend he had just eluded, so Harvey apologized and told her he had been having a bad day.  She explained her art to him, and then he told her that he could supply her with all the hair she needed.  She said that's more than her boyfriend ever did for her.

She sat down to eat salad with him, and as they discussed their new business arrangement, they fell in love over the arugula.

THE END.

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COMING UP:   DC Fairy Tale Endings

Earth Day, a Day on Earth

Congressman Herrmark was taking a break from his duties as Capitol Hill zombie hunter to search for anti-fracking campaign donors at the Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day rally next to the Washington Monument.

"These people don't seem to have any money," he grumbled to his Chief of Staff, Ann Bishis.  "Some of them look like hippies.  And the children and animals are useless!"

"Sir, this is more about building up your name in environmental circles," replied Bishis (who was also in charge of the war on the Zombie Caucus).  "You want people to say your name in the same breath as the great environmental politicians like Michael Bloomberg--then you can get money from people like Leonardo DiCaprio!"

"Mark Ruffalo won't even return my phone calls, and you said he's the biggest anti-fracking celebrity in the country!" whined Herrmark.

"Well, he's probably upset about your vote to weaken Wall Street regulations.  It's a complex political field these days."

"Well, I regret that vote now!  Had I known that legislation was secretly sponsored by the Zombie Caucus, I never would have voted for it!"

"I know," sighed Bishis.  "Who would have guessed that zombies are so heavily funded by investment bankers?"

"I can't take this music anymore!" exclaimed Herrmark.  "And my bodyguards are making out with hippies!"

"Nick!  Costas!" she shouted at her Greek twin cousins, who immediately shoved the girls off and pulled their guns.  "Put the guns away!  I just wanted to get your attention."  She turned back to her boss.  "Why don't you go talk to that D.C. Councilmember?"

"A local politician?  Forget it!  It's bad enough I have to do that back home."  Then he kicked away a golden retriever trying to lick his hand.

Several yards away, Sebastian L'Arche shook his head in disgust.  The Dog Whisperer and his business partner, Becky Hartley, had a dozen dogs in tow, themselves.

"Best dog walk ever!" exclaimed Hartley, who was constantly handing out brochures for all the services they offered--walking, grooming, boarding, whisper therapy, acupuncture, rodent removal, weddings, and funerals.  (L'Arche wouldn't let her put anything about ghosts on the brochure:  he said that was something he should keep secret with the dogs he whispered to.  Why disturb the owners if the owners weren't already disturbed?)  "Have you noticed that our dogs are the best behaved?"

"Of course," said L'Arche, "but not for long."

"What's the matter?" asked Hartley.

"They're here," said the Dog Whisperer, looking nervously at the crowd.

"Who's here?"

"The cat pack."

Hartley knew what that meant:  the ghost of Condoleezza Rice's cat, Pippin, had gradually been gathering a large pack of angry feline ghosts.  (Most had been feral alley cats hit by cars.)  They still didn't know what it meant for animals to be ghosts, and L'Arche found them more disturbing than anything else.  L'Arche had taught many pets to learn not to be afraid of human ghosts in their homes, but this was different to him.  It was just so wrong.

He watched their old friend, Petro Pig, let out a loud grunt and charge straight into the pack of cat ghosts, which hissed and ran away.  The pot-bellied pig's owners, Luciano and Helen Talaverdi Yellen, spotted L'Arche and came over to him.  "Sometimes he just goes crazy like that!" exclaimed Luciano.  "Oinking at nothing!  Does he ever do that when you are taking care of him?"

"Sometimes," replied L'Arche, who was already squatting down to whisper a thank-you to Petro Pig for his bravery.  "Don't worry about it--he's a very smart pig."

"I tried to introduce him to Congressman Herrmark earlier, because they have so much in common," said Helen, "but he yelled, 'Get that pig away from me!'"

"Aw, he's from a state with hog slaughterhouses," said Hartley.

"I don't think he understood the sign, honey," Luciano said to his wife, referring to the t-shirt Petro Pig was wearing that said "Big Oil -- Wallow With Me!".

"It is a little subtle," agreed L'Arche who, along with Petro Pig, was now noticing the arrival of a different ghost pack--this one canine.  He felt his living dogs start pulling at their leashes, and stood up.  "We need to get moving."

Hartley, as usual, followed his cue.  "Nice seeing you!"  L'Arche led them away from the crowd.  "Sebastian, what are the cat ghosts doing?"

"Oh, they're gone," said L'Arche.  "Petro Pig scared them away.  But The Gopper Ghost is here with Anatoly Malenkov."

"The Russian diplomat trapped in the Samoyed ghost body?!"  (L'Arche nodded.)  "Oh, God, that is the freakiest thing!  Why hasn't he gone to Heaven, or somewhere?  How can he be in a dog ghost?  Are you absolutely certain?"

"I'm not crazy!" said L'Arche, who handed all his leashes to Hartley.  "Stay there," he said, calming their living dogs, and then he walked over to the canine ghost pack, which was now almost a dozen.  What are you doing here? he whispered, squatting down.  The Ghost Gopper said they felt good energy emanating from this place.  Anatoly lay down to have his ghost Samoyed belly scratched, but L'Arche shook his head.  You can't stay like that, Anatoly.  You don't belong in this pack. 

They keep me safe! cried Anatoly, whose spirit had jumped into a Samoyed just after being murdered, only to have the distressed Samoyed then leap out a window to its death.  And I love Earth Day concerts!

You have to try to go where you belong now, whispered L'Arche, with your own kind!

Let him be, said The Ghost Gopper, to his old friend the Dog Whisperer.  You don't understand.

Not far away, conspiracy theorist Glenn Michael Beckmann was getting into a heated argument with a "Ban the Bomb" t-shirt wearer from Hyattsville.  "You don't understand!" shouted Beckmann.  "The Bomb is the only thing stopping the Russian invasion!"

"Those people can't even invade Ukraine properly!" the bohemian rebutted.

"How dare you bring up Ukraine!  Putin assassinated my wife, Darja!" screamed Beckmann, who was not entirely certain of that but had no supporting evidence for his other theories:  President Obama, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, or the CEO of Au Bon Pain.  "I bet you're one of those gyrocopter, femi-Nazi, eco-terrorist, Occupy-Wall-Streeters, aren't you!?  I'll shoot you all out of the sky, rebel scum!"

"Jeez, man, calm down!  Here, take this, dude:  you need it more than me."  And he handed Beckmann his last reefer.

"Oh, thanks," said Beckmann.  "I ran out yesterday."

"Make love, not war, right?"

Beckmann narrowed his eyes.  "Don't push it!  I'm a veteran!"

That last part was a lie, but like many lies told in Washington, if you told it enough times, you came to believe it was true.

And so Ardua of the Potomac laughed at this feeble and futile celebration of Mother Earth.  After all, Mother Earth had also given birth to the river demon and all her minions!  And it would take a million gyrocopters to take back Capitalism Hill from Big Oil and the investment bankers, and save the planet.

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COMING UP:   DC Fairy Tale Endings

Cherry Bomb Festival

"Go, go, go, go!"

The FBI agents raiding Prince and Prowling were not really anticipating any resistance on this Sunday afternoon at the close of the Cherry Blossom Festival, but it was legally required in the United States that law enforcement officials treat every raid as a militarized foray into hostile enemy territory.  And thus three dozen agents entered the luxurious law offices across the street from the White House in full battle gear, armed to the teeth.  A loud burglar alarm went off as they kicked in the glass doors leading to the receptionist desk on the penultimate-to-penthouse floor (despite the pleas of Javier, the lobby security guard who had told them a minute earlier--after seeing their search warrant--that he could unlock the doors).  The ratio of jackboots to actual forensic investigators was very high, so the jackboots were able to fan out quickly and secure five floors of empty offices for the investigators to examine paper files, remove hard drives, and pocket flash drives all across the law firm.

Prince and Prowling was a large old law firm which had spent decades making money in any manner for which they could proffer at least a sliver of legal gray area to justify.  Prince and Prowling was rarely investigated by the Feds, and had successfully negotiated small criminal fines for the few times their legal arguments seemed a little wobbly to stand up in a court of law.  But this was different:  this time the Feds had an inside tip.

And so, on paper, they were focused on raiding the office of staff attorney Chloe Cleavage, who had claimed 10 dependents on her individual tax return--all of whom had names allegedly corresponding to contract attorneys working in P&P's state-of-the-art review center [aka SOTA-Bunker].  But the FBI agents wanted to look at everything--especially the private family foundation tax returns and the SuperPAC files in Evermore Breadman's office.  (Everybody knew how dirty Prince and Prowling was, after all!)

Meanwhile, Chloe was actually down in the crowded underground bunker, cracking the whip on 200 disgruntled worker ants sick to death of processing evidence in a class-action auto parts case.  She quickly told them to ignore the sound of the burglar alarm, since she had a different sounding alarm that would go off if SOTA-Bunk were ever breached.  She continued walking around the bunker, injecting the workers' upper arms with her custom blend of B-vitamins, amino acids, bull testosterone, caffeine, and ecstasy.  This enabled them to work all day without having to eat--which was forbidden in SOTA-Bunk, and only permitted in the tiny break room outside the bunker.  For ten of the contract attorneys, even that was not enough, so Chloe kept for them in the break room special power shakes she made from pomegranate juice, wheat germ, yogurt, kale, quinoa, and chocolate syrup.  This was why she felt perfectly justified claiming ten contract attorneys as dependents on her tax return.

Staff attorney Laura Moreno was getting sick in the restroom when the burglar alarm went off--she was in there a lot, since the law firm had never approved any of her vacation requests since she had become a staff attorney, and had insisted her health insurance would never cover any preexisting conditions.  She clutched her aching head in dismay and made her way back to SOTA-Bunk to see what was happening.

She ran into Mariana and Alejandro, who were leaving SOTA-Bunk against Chloe's orders.  The truth was, they were the ones who had tipped off the FBI--disgruntled over being lured into this nightmare case by phony promises of loads and loads of Spanish documents for which they would get paid extra money.  (There were no Spanish documents!  Only lies!  Pinche mentirosa Chloe!) They suspected the FBI was in the building and were eager to find them.

"What's going on?" asked Laura.

"Not sure!" said Mariana, on her way to the stairwell emergency exit.

"Is everybody evacuating?"

"Not sure!" said Alejandro, holding the door for Mariana and then quickly following her to the stairs.

Laura followed them up to the lobby, where two FBI agents immediately pointed guns at them and asked them where they had come from.

"The bunker!" exclaimed Mariana, bursting into tears.

The FBI agents handcuffed the three to the lobby's $4,000 modern art sculpture (wrought-iron rendering of the Statue of Liberty performing a flying Dutchman jump), then headed down the stairs to investigate the bunker.

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed the first agent (who had, surprisingly, not kicked in the door, but had, rather, used the key card he had ripped off of Moreno's neck).  In front of them stretched a sea of zombie-like creatures, almost as pale as albinos, with dark circles around their twitching eyes.  One was nervously ripping his hair out.  Another was laughing and nodding repeatedly at the computer screen in front of her.  Another was passed out in her chair, where Chloe was using a battery-operated bug zapper to give the temp mild electrical shocks.  "The humanity!"

"And the smell!" said the other agent.  "It's like the slaughterhouse after the arrival of a hundred steer!"  (He was from Texas.)

And so began what would come to be known in labor rights circles as "the Great Mole Liberation", in tax attorney circles as "the Cherry Blossom Forensic Parade", at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration as "the Prince and Prowling Prick Sting", and among the partners of Prince and Prowling as "the Cherry Bomb of 2015".

Back in the lobby, Bridezilla was arriving with her fiancé, Wince, to hang up in her office a cherry blossom watercolor she had just purchased at the festival.

"What in tarnation is happening here?!" she exclaimed, spotting Laura Moreno and two Mexican-looking people handcuffed to the lobby sculpture.

"I wish I knew!" cried Moreno, nauseous and on the verge of fainting from a fever.

"It's the FBI," said Mariana.  "They're raiding your law firm."

"Ha!  Serves them right!" exclaimed Bridezilla, who was still furious that the managing attorney had told her she could not announce her engagement to a partisan political candidate until after the Virginia elections were over in the fall.  "Bad karma!"

"Honey, this is serious!" scolded Wince.  "We don't even know what this is about!"

"Well, I never broke any laws!" declared his fiancée.  "If there are criminals in my law firm, good riddance!  Us decent folk should be running things!"  (The three attorneys handcuffed to the sculpture protested they were not criminals, either, but Bridezilla had already turned to head back to the car.

Over at the Tidal Basin, the Cherry Blossom Festival wound down to a close with thousands of giddy visitors snapping pictures in the sunshine.  The river demon, Ardua of the Potomac, lurked just below the water's surface, trailed constantly by Marcos Vazquez of the U.S. Coast Guard--who was wearing a new fetish supplied by his wife, Golden Fawn, for just that purpose.  And Glenn Michael Beckmann continued to finger the cherry bombs in his pocket, on the lookout for that girl-who-might-be-a-Cuban-terrorist-spy...or anybody else on his list.

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COMING UP:  Earth Day is every day in Washington...not!

The Diary of Glenn Michael Beckmann

(Washington Water Woman had a rough week, so she invited renowned conspiracy blogger Glenn Michael Beckmann to contribute something today.  What Washington Water Woman did not know was that Beckmann's doctor recently changed his meds...and that Beckmann has also been smoking every green weed he could find since marijuana possession was decriminalized in the District of Columbia....)

It has come to my attention that Vladimir Putin (one of my top-ten suspects for the assassination of my darling Darja) has engineered invitations to the White House Easter Egg Roll for five Russian secret agents!  So I am launching a covert operation I'm calling Operation Covert Easter Egg Roll Operation.  (Ha!  That's not even the real name!)

What an event I have planned! If all goes as I envision it, we will kick off the morning by boarding a stagecoach that will be held aloft by a hot-air balloon and propelled by a swarm of bees. As we are carried to a destination of the bees’ choosing, from the coach’s windows we will glimpse pieces of pie with arms and legs engaged in combat with helpless, melting ice cream on the shores of an ocean of béarnaise sauce, all against the breathtaking backdrop of a sky filled with smog of every shade of purple in the rainbow. En route to our final destination, we will stop briefly on The Other Side, where we will be reunited not only with dear departed friends, relatives, and pets but also with earlier versions of people who are still alive, along with various loads of laundry we have done in the course of our lives. Finally, we will alight on the edge of a vast field filled with chocolate truffles and goats. We will gambol through the field, and when we come out of it at the opposite end, we will discover to our amazement that our shoes are cleaner than they were when we entered it. In the clearing, we will spy a spring that seems to be sluggishly, sporadically, and indiscriminately spewing orange soda that’s gone flat. A skeletal man with a flowing white beard will emerge from the brush and tell us it’s the Fountain of Middle Age, whereupon the Russian secret agents will run in the opposite direction because they want to be young forever.  Then I will know who the secret agents are and kill them all!  The Easter Egg Roll will be saved!

Ha, fooled you again!  That's not my plan at all!  That was a plan I used eight years ago when I was looking for Osama bin Laden!  Except there was heroin and donkeys and a Publishers' Clearinghouse check and a Chinese marching band.  It worked great!  Lots of bloodshed!

And I'm not even going after Russian agents at the White House Easter Egg Roll!  I'm going after the Easter Bunny because Ghost Henry told me it's Chinese spy Charles Wu and he's handing out toy spy drones to all the children!

Or am I????????

I have woven a web of deception so webby that you will never know what's coming until it arrives!  But mark my words:  what I do at Monday's Easter Egg Roll is going to be epic!  They will still be talking about it even when the next Super Bowl is on TV.

Finally, Beckmann's Floral Cushions is having a 40% off sale on poppy pillows (endorsed by the National Security Agency) and narcissus neck rolls (endorsed by Sense of Entitlement Anonymous).

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COMING UP:  Prince and Prowling's tax attorneys are in for a surprise!