Adventures of the Cursed Rolex!

The Cursed Rolex had been wreaking havoc in Washington ever since Donald Rumsfeld received it as a gift from Dick Cheney, then lost it in the haunted Potomac River.  Having subsequently adorned a series of cursed wrists, it was now currently poisoning psychiatrist Ermann Esse.

In late December, Dr. Esse had advised patient John Boehner to follow his dream of building the first Catholic theme park.  (Instead of Cinderella's Castle, there would be a mini Vatican.  Instead of characters like Mickey Mouse and Daisy Duck, there would be a Saint Augustine and a Saint Monica walking around.  Instead of the Tea Cup Ride and Space Mountain, there would be the Communion Cup Ride and Ascension Mountain.)  Dr. Esse had also suggested several mafia bosses as good sources of loans, and Boehner had not been seen since visiting New Jersey just after New Year's.

Just before New Year's, Dr. Esse had encouraged patient Bridezilla to jet off to Martinique with a man she had only known a few days, the Condor--whom she knew as "Marco Pel".  The spy had hacked all her online accounts while she was drunk, only to discover that, as a mere contract attorney, she had been cut off from all the important Prince and Prowling client information previously inhabiting her life.  Then she had gotten him drunk, and they had gotten married at the Fort-de-France courthouse on January 4th.  When Dr. Esse received the honeymoon selfie in a text from Bridezilla, his first thought was, "I finally got the runaway bride down the aisle!"  His second thought was, "What a disaster this quickie marriage is going to be!  She will probably be coming in here on a weekly basis, and since I'm raising my rates in 2016, I'll be able to plan my own vacation to Martinique!"  His third thought was, "I could easily have an affair with her now.  She'll be so vulnerable!"

On New Year's Eve, the paranoid (with reason) U.S. Attorney, Atticus Hawk, had visited the shrink in despair about the pressure of working directly for the U.S. Attorney General, the anxiety of again being under FBI surveillance (because his ex-girlfriend had escaped federal custody), and the misery of not being able to find the support and comfort of a good woman.  Dr. Esse had suggested that Hawk start taking massive amounts of testosterone supplements to boost his self-confidence and bravura, resulting in (1) the need to shave three times a day (including his ears), (2) one-night stands every night in January, (3) and a drunken trespass (on a dare) into the Old Post Office Pavilion bell tower to rappel down the side and spray-paint "Donald Trump is a warthog-faced buffoon who licks his own--".  (Hawk fell and broke a leg before completing it.)

Today, Dr. Esse was seeing White House butler, Clio.

"I still see Reggie and Fergie sometimes," she admitted to the shrink, referring to her deceased pre-schooler twins, Regina and Ferguson.  "I know they're not really there, and yet, it seems like they are growing and learning and getting into less trouble."

"That's how you wanted it to be while they were alive, but you were a terrible mother," said the sick psychiatrist.

"I...I know," Clio said, struggling not to cry.  "I was so tired all the time."

"You can't use HIV as an excuse," the shrink said.

"Their father was gone."

"Another excuse," he said.

"What I'm trying to say is, they have a father figure now.  A man named Dennis.  He's a ghost, too, I guess."

"This is all a figment of your imagination."

"It seems so real," said Clio.

"You realize you could lose your White House security clearance?" asked the shrink, and he looked at her malevolently.

"Please tell me how to stop seeing them," she said, starting to cry.

"Let's try some hypnosis," he said.  A minute later, she was in a trance, and Dr. Esse was telling her things to do at the White House (steal some silverware, hide all the Obama girls' school books, let the toilet paper run out, spit in the soup) when he was interrupted by another patient, Didymus.  "You can't be in here," the shrink said, sternly.

Didymus was actually the ghost of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.  "Obama can learn from my mistakes!" Didymus pleaded.  "Let me give her some hypnotic advice to pass along!"

"This woman has enough obsessions without listening to you harp about the lessons of Vietnam!"

"Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for what?  Let me talk to her!"

Then, for the first time ever, Dr. Esse got violent with a patient--or tried to--but his attempt to punch Didymus and push him out into the waiting area just resulted in Dr. Esse's falling over and crashing onto the coffee table.  Clio woke up from the loud thud, saw Didymus, recognized him from pictures she had seen, screamed that he was another ghost, and ran out of the office.

"Now look what you've done!" shouted Dr. Esse, turning purple in the face, too angry to examine his own wounds.  "I'm going to kill you!"

And he tried choking Didymus but fell over again.  "You've gone insane!" cried Didymus.  "Something is wrong with you!"  But Robert McNamara was still not very good at recognizing true evil, and so he never guessed that Dr. Esse's Rolex was cursed.

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Washington Water Woman is heading out of town for a week, but has plenty more posts coming!