Petro Pig and other Washingtonians return from OPEC meeting.

Petro Pig was grunting around the 17th Street dog park, proud of his recent success at the OPEC meeting in Doha, Qatar.  First of all, Muslims think pigs are unclean, but the OPEC president himself had been on hand at the Qatari airport to make sure that Petro Pig was granted entry into the country--assuring the airport officials that Petro Pig was one of the greatest champions of petroleum still remaining in the United States!  The fact is, OPEC had no idea that Petro Pig was an ironical champion of the petroleum industry, currently holding sixth place on the American Petroleum Institute's Top Ten Most Wanted list of oil enemies (behind wind power but ahead of Operation Free).   Petro Pig (and his "parents", Helen Yellen and Luciano Talaverdi Yellen) had thus been given red carpet treatment--and a large bag of figs to eat--upon their arrival.

Their trip had actually been paid for by a secret solar power SuperPAC whose director, like Helen Yellen, believed that Petro Pig had ESP.  Petro Pig had, in fact, gleaned a lot of secret thoughts from the meeting attendees in Qatar, such as--

"Man, I wish I could eat bacon." 
"Who let in that filthy pig?!"
"Who let in that woman?!"
"Why is that woman with the pig not wearing a veil?!"
"Maybe she'll have sex with me."
"I hate those Iranians!"
"I hate those Arabs!"
"I hate those Venezuelans!"
"I hate those Saudis!"
"I hate the Americans!"
"I hate the Russians!"
"Death to Israel!"
"Death to Tesla!"
"Death to Amal Clooney and George Clooney!"

Unfortunately, Helen Yellen had not yet learned how to get Petro Pig to pass along third party mental eavesdropping.  So, while it was fairly clear to Helen that Petro Pig could read her thoughts and read Luciano's thoughts, she had no idea what thoughts he had read while infiltrating the OPEC meeting.

Nevertheless, the solar power SuperPAC was very pleased with the outcome of the OPEC meeting.  Although some might argue that solar power would be better served by an OPEC agreement to prop up prices, the SuperPAC was thrilled that OPEC continued in disarray--which meant that OPEC continued to have less and less influence on Washington government leaders.  And since it was Petro Pig, in fact, who had caused the majority of grumbling and finger-pointing at the OPEC meeting, the solar power SuperPAC told Helen and Luciano that it was the best five-thousand dollars they had ever spent!

Over at CIA headquarters, the ghost of Henry Samuelson was less pleased with his own operatives' infiltration of the OPEC meeting.

"We can't let the price of oil keep falling!" he railed.  "The CIA bet on Saudi Arabia over half a century ago, and if our chief partner in the Muslim world implodes, where will that lead us?!"

"To a more balanced approach to Middle Eastern politics?"

"No, you moron!  Instability!  Riots!  Regime change!  Terrorism!"

"We have all those things already."

"They'll be worse!"

"Henry, just because the CIA bet on the Saudi horse doesn't mean the Ghost CIA has to!"

"Well, betting on Iran was a disaster--we can't do that again!"

"What about Turkey?"

"Of, for God's sake!" cried Ghost Henry, throwing his spectral hands up in despair.

Back in Washington, triple agent Charles Wu was more pleased with his own OPEC infiltrator, the Condor, who had been able to deliver information on almost every country's planned production for the summer months.  This was intelligence he could sell to both London and Beijing.  Things just kept getting better and better for Charles Wu!

"Marco," Charles said (using the name with which the Condor had gotten married to Bridezilla), "are you ever going to tell her you're a spy?"

The Condor burst out laughing.

"No, I'm serious," said Charles, raising his empty glass to signal the Penn Commons waitress.

"You can't be serious!  She only loves me because I'm tall, dark, and mysterious."

"She's down and out.  You could give her intelligence that could boost her career--surely she would love you for that."

"And now I'm supposed to take love advice from you?!" laughed the Condor.  "She'd probably call the FBI on me!"

"I'm not so sure about that."

Over in Dupont Circle, the Heurich Society's OPEC mole was reporting to the members in the upper floor conference room of the Brewmaster's Castle.

"I have never seen anything like it!  Petro Pig had the run of the place!"

"What?!" blustered Dick Cheney.  "How the hell does a pig get the run of the place at OPEC?"

"I don't know.  The dude with the pig said he was analyzing petroleum price trends for the Federal Reserve Board, but his wife was clearly the one in charge of the pig."

"A woman!?  At OPEC!?"  Cheney's heart was racing in disbelief.

"Well, it was Qatar, not the Kingdom.  Anyway, that pot-belly was a huge distraction.  Some of the delegates actually took pictures with him:  they were fed some bullshit about how Petro Pig is a great champion of petroleum."

"This is unacceptable!" exclaimed Cheney, pounding his fist on the table.  "This never would have happened when I was President!"  (A Navy commander opened his mouth to correct Cheney, but the CIA agent sitting next to him gave him a quick elbow jab.)  "We can't let oil prices keep falling!"

"Well, part of the reason is that exempting fracking from the Clean Water Act made domestic oil cheaper, and you were the one that pushed that through for Halliburton," said the investment banker.

"That's not the point!" cried Cheney.

"You do understand the effect of supply and demand on pricing, right?" asked the investment banker, who had to duck quickly when Cheney threw a jelly doughnut at him.

Back at the dog park, the dogs (and their owners) were very interested in the pot-bellied pig, but Petro Pig was busy chatting with the canine ghost pack run by the Gopper....

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COMING UP:  All that glitters is not gold!