A gypsy, a dotard, and a zombie walk into a bar....

It had been an interesting week for the Reiki Triplets.  Cal, Maggie, and Sassy (Calcium, Magnesium, and Sassafras) had learnt that they had been submitted for a high-level background check in order to render reiki services to VIPs.  They had learned this when Melania Trump had arrived for a one p.m. appointment mid-week (which had been phoned in for "Gypsy").  The Secret Service had cleared out their entire Capitol Hill house, including Sassy's super annoyed musician husband (roused from a sound sleep) and Justice Department attorney Atticus Hawk (who was hustled out before he could pay for his just completed reiki session).  Melania told the Reiki Triplets that her husband was too jealous to allow her to get any type of touch massage, but she had read many interesting Yelp reviews for them ("transcendental!" "divine!" "surreal vision of Siamese triplet ghosts dancing above me!"), so she wanted to give it a try.  Melania relaxed quickly under the influence of their aura, the jasmine aromatherapy, and the smooth pebbles placed in each of her palms.  She told them how unhappy she was tramping around the White House vegetable garden in sneakers and a plaid ("plaid, like a lumberjack!") shirt for the photo op her publicist had talked her into with those "street urchins" (how she described African-American children).  "Why am I picking vegetables like a slave from long ago?"

"Oh, honey," Maggie replied, "it's good to put your hands on growing, green leaves!"

"Thank them for how they will nourish you," added Sassy.

"Smell the soil and inhale the freshly made oxygen," said Cal.

"But those sweaty street urchins are so stinky!  I only like to smell sweat in bed."  (She was talking about her two lovers, not her husband.)

"Um, okay,' said Maggie, "but next time just put some really strong-smelling hairspray on, and that's what you'll smell."

"Oh, no," interjected Cal, "don't be recommending chemicals!"

"Well, if it helps Melania spend time in the garden--"

"I am First Lady!  You cannot call me by name!"

"Honey, it is dehumanizing to refer to you like an artificial construct!" said Sassy.  "Your name is personal and empowering!  We send you self-affirming energy just by saying it!"

"Oh, well, alright.  When I meet Prince Harry at Invictus, should I call him Harry?"

"Only if you mean it," said Cal.

Then on Friday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had shown up.  (This appointment had been phoned in as "John Wayne".)  "I don't like people to touch me," said Tillerson.  "But a little bird had suggested to me I try this reiki thing."  (The "little bird" had been Ghost Dennis, the Reiki Triplets' deceased father, who lived at the White House.)

"We won't touch you at all," said Sassy, joining hands with her identical sisters around the table.

"Nothing's working," said Tillerson.

"Deep breaths," said Maggie.

"He didn't listen to us!" exclaimed Tillerson.  "We told him not to make personal attacks on Un, but he did anyway!'

"He is full of negative energy," said Cal.

"He's a dotard!" replied Tillerson.  "That damned Rocket Man got it right!  A dotard and a barking dog!"

"With our energy, you can go back to see the President and give him some of this healing power."

"Then he went off on Venezuela," continued Tillerson, "and he thought what he said was so clever that people would clap for it!  He just stood there for twenty seconds of silence, looking around for the applause that never came!"

"He craves adulation," replied Sassy, "but you can--"

"Well, he didn't get it!" interrupted Tillerson.  "So he heads to Alabama for another white supremacist rally to get the damned applause!  I think it's because he's never had a wife that loved him."

"Hmm," all three said in unison.

"Women are capable of great love," said Cal, "but they need nurturing to grow and flower."

"Nurturing?!" laughed Tillerson.  "He's just nurturing his bank account!  I mean, I get it, I love money, but I also ran Exxon because I believe that God gave us petroleum to use it!"

"God also gave us brains to use," said Maggie, motioning her sisters to hover their hands above Tillerson's head.  "Are you using yours?"

Tillerson felt insulted and was about to jump up in protest when he saw what appeared to be three men fused together, doing aerial somersaults near the ceiling.  "What the?"

"That's it," said Sassy, who knew he was seeing the Siamese triplet ghosts now.  "Free your mind."

Today, Congressman Paul Ryan was the one under Secret Service protection, speeding over to see the Reiki Triplets.  Ever since becoming a zombie, the Speaker of the House had been getting more and more resistance from his regular Thai masseuse--who somehow always seemed too busy to schedule him in.  Even when he had grown suspicious and had his scheduler phone him in as "Peter Rand", "Clyde Hyde", or "Bob Weisenheimer", somehow when he showed up, the receptionist would suddenly say, "Oh, she just went home sick!  Migraine!  Nobody else available!"  So--desperate for something, anything--he had relented to trying out this reiki thing suggested by his scheduler.  (He did like to try to stay hip with what the millennials were into.)  His neck felt like every #taketheknee guy in the NFL was kneeling on Ryan's shoulders.  His spine felt like Hurricane Maria had pulverized him, not Puerto Rico.  His adrenal glands felt like those bitches Senator Collins and Senator Murkowsky were stabbing him in the back instead of repealing Obamacare.  And the tax cut push felt like--

The SUV door opened, and Congressman Ryan stepped out.  He walked past the front yard fountain, bird bath, and Saint Francis statute, then into the entrance for the reiki studio.  The Reiki Triplets were standing there to greet their third (still unknown) VIP client of the week, but wrinkled up their noses at the stench of his zombie brain as soon as he entered the room.

"No, no, no, no!" they all started muttering in unison.

"What's the problem!?" barked a Secret Service officer.

"What, you don't know?" asked Cal.

"They don't know," said Sassy.

"Know what?!" he demanded.

"Well," began Maggie, looking around.

"We can't help him," said Sassy.

"What?!" exclaimed the Speaker of the House and his guards.

"Well, he's a zombie," said Sassy.

"Damned Antifa niggers!" yelled Ryan.  "No offense, Stanley," he added, smiling at the one whose name was actually Stephen.

"Damned zombie!" exclaimed Stephen, punching Congressman Ryan in the stomach.

The other officer drew his gun on Stephen, ordered him down on the ground, then hauled Ryan out safely to the SUV.

"It's alright, son," said Cal.  "You can get up now."

"I really blew it this time," said Stephen, standing up.

"You come in and get on the table," said Maggie.  "You'll feel better soon."

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COMING UP:        
Supreme Court Justice (not!) defending freedom!