The Saga of Dick, Richie & Beauregard

The German word schadenfreude, which means taking pleasure from another's misfortune, would seem to have been tailor made for the many people who loath billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, a former drunk with a bad temper who almost singlehandedly bankrolled the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and now finds himself in a helluva fix.

WaPo writer David Segal has put together a drop-dead funny but true travelogue based on the marital travails of "Dick" Scaife and Margaret "Ritchie" Scaife, his estranged second wife.

Some highlights:

* Before they wed in 1991, Scaife inexplicably failed to get her to sign a prenuptial agreement that would have walled off his immense fortune from her.

* While their lawyers hash things out, Richie is receiving $725,000 a month in alimony. That's not a typo, and translates into about $24,000 a day. Every day.

* Richie filed for divorce after she discovered that Dick was banging a hooker at a cheap motel ($28 for three hours) where he was driven twice a month or so in his limousine.

* The inventory of Richie's stuff in her divorce papers runs more than 80 pages and reads, as Simon puts it, "like an episode of Antiques Roadshow that will not end." It includes meat platters, sardine forks, melon forks, a circa-1804 Dutch teapot, a painting by Magritte, Victorian cream pitchers, bread trays, candlesticks, a sterling silver nutmeg grater, flatware service . . .

* The real fight, though, is not over finger bowls, but Beauregard, a yellow Labrador retriever whom Ritchie says is a direct descendant of a pooch belonging to a king of England. Richie claims that Beau was minding his own business in her own back yard before Dick snatched him.

Oh the schadenfreude!

Illustration courtesy of The Washington Post