The story of Chanukah, part 2 - the politically exceptionally incorrect section

Of course, Chanukah is a mainstream Australian festival. Writers have an obligation to churn out popular pieces, usually following the most widespread narrative (the one you just read, which is a tad antiquated now and which belongs to the borderline period when Chanukah could be celebrated openly but before it became – to quote the advertisers – everyone’s favourite Australian holiday). Not all of the writers enjoy those never-ending assignments on a festival that belongs to a religion other than their own. For example, this just crossed my desk:
Editors Note: Since we started being more and more inclusive of the minority groups, some of them have gone mad – look, Chanukah might just be one of the minor festivals, but it's fun, and as the advertisers say: It's Australia's favourite festival! Retail relies on sales boosts at Chanukah, leading into the hot, dull summer months before they can start gouging out the back to school stuff at incredible mark-ups. But every now and then I get one of those 'minority types' thinking they have the same rights as the rest of us. Take this letter I got last year, for example:



Re: Insights into Everyone’s Favourite Festival

I know you thought this assignment would be a delightful one, but I’m afraid I have to refuse it.
Editors Note: Refuse? How un-Australian? What is wrong with this person?

I know it’s too late for you to assign it to anyone else, but you must know that no-one’s going to read it anyway. Christmas ought to be the season (and most people get through December and January without even knowing it exists – damned philistines), not this trumped up Jewish thing which I experience mainly through my neighbour’s experiments in frying. I’m not Jewish, and you ought not make me suffer so.
Editors Note: It's a festival of food, fried food, to be sure, but food being celebrated. Seriously, I can't believe I considered putting this reporter's work up for a Walkley ...

My neighour should lay off, too. I can take canned versions of Dreidl, Dreidl (I heard the chipmunk version four times when I popped out to buy milk – I have come to dread dreidls) and I can replace Ma’ot tsur with my own Rock of Ages (singing in my mind, because it wouldn’t do to offend the masses) but I’m not sure I can take any more of my neighbour’s cooking.
Editors Note: OK, Driedl muzak – I'll give them that, that shits me to tears too, but then she's comparing it to that mournful Rock of Ages? Give me the Chipmunks over that stuff any day.

She fried a turducken last week and still pops around every day with parcels. Eventually she thankfully ran out of deep-fried turducken and so she fried chocolate yesterday, with eleven different herbs and spices and a breadcrumb coating (Kentucky fried chocolate, she named it, but I can guarantee you that no-one fries chocolate in Kentucky) and yesterday she pulled eight (apparently random) items from her pantry and refrigerator and has just given me a basket of what she claims to be her ‘Special Milchig Chanukah Selection.’ The basket is stained with grease and so is the list that tells me what’s what. I would tell her what’s what if I dared, but instead I’m waiting for rubbish collection to take away the dregs of her pantry. She has fried me olives, cream cheese, pickled cucumbers, chickpeas, acidophilus capsules, Graham crackers, avocado dip (which she kindly notes is past its use-by date) and pistachio nuts in their shell.
Editor's Note: At what point did this go from being a refusal to do a perfectly reasonable, ordinary Chanukah assignment, to this whinger complaining about their neighbour giving them free food. Fried turducken sounds pretty fab to me. Idiot could have brought some into the office for the rest of us to share, Ingrate.

Excuse me, but there’s someone at the door.
Editor's Note: Yeah, because I care about that …

It’s my neighbour again. She explained that I needed a non-dairy basket, since it’s the last day. It’s apparently traditional. Now I have chicken drumsticks, duck, roast turkey (that turkducken in disguise), egg, chicken salami, beef strips, kangaroo meatballs and emu pastrami, all of which will grace my rubbish bin just as soon as I can waddle out the door. Fried emu pastrami is a culinary abomination.
Editor's Note: More effing whinging .. why am I still reading this tripe?

I wish Australia were one of those countries where Jews were in such a minority that she didn’t dare to be neighbourly in this way. Or to fry emu pastrami.
Editor's Note: I wonder if anyone has told this ingrate that if they don't like how things are in 'Straya, then they can just f*&$ off back to where they came from?

None of this is why I can’t write you that article. The truth is that I’ve developed a phobia of sheep.
Editor's Note: Right, so that all expenses paid gig in New Zealand is off the cards for them . I reckon Joe would be happy to take it, though. Could probably re-cycle one of his old columns for an emergency Chanukah report for me too ...

I’ve applied for a job in Antarctica (where the only sheep are for eating or wearing) but until that comes through, I need to avoid sheep in all their manifestations for the sake of my mental health. I especially need to avoid zombie sheep which, I understand, are a special element of the bush Chanukah. I could move to the US, where they never developed the celebration to the extent of smearing blood over the mouth of fake sheep; they’re more interested in presents than baskets of fried foods, too. I know all this because I did my research before starting this email to you.
Editor's Note: Research? I don't think this jackass would know research if it leapt up stark naked, and bit them on the bum. Probably notice if a sheep bit them on the bum, though. I wonder if sheep bite bums?

I did my research and the zombie sheep gave me nightmares and I promptly applied for that job in Antarctica. I didn’t apply for the US job, for they have sheep in the US (just not zombie sheep). I found an excellent article proving that Jews spoke Spanish before they spoke Hebrew and that modern Jewish footnotes came from Medieval systems of glossing.
Editor's Note: I wonder if Medieval sheep bit bums?

It would have been a very impressive article. I would have delved into how one maintains the virginity of olive oil in a corrupt society and the history of the move of the Melbourne Cup until it reached its current date of the first Tuesday in Chanukah. I was researching the Ten Tangled Questions of Judaism when I discovered that three of them have sheep lurking behind their innocent faces and the sheep and the fried food overwhelmed me and it’s all too much and you can just manage without “Insights into Everyone’s Favourite Festival” this year.
Editors Note: Need to send a memo out to the other editors about this nut-case. They need to know they might be hiring one of those dreary Christian agitators.

To appease you, I attach the final of my story into the bad habits of hobbits. I found some eye-opening behaviour in the hobbit community, I can tell you. I have another version I can send, if you want, but it will only do if we have a sealed section this month and if our legal advisor thinks the hobbits won’t sue. It’s accurate, but the little ones cultivate such a prissy public image that I’m not certain how they’ll react to certain elements of their private lives being revealed. One of the elements I left out of even the racy version was their Chanukah habits. Let me just say (without going into detail) that hobbits fry more than mushrooms for the festival. They are genuinely terrifying.
Editor's Note: So – not content with attacking a mainstream, quite minor festival, now they want to sling shit about hobbits. 'sigh' I have some hobbit friends, and there's nothing terrifying about them. Typical, whinging bigots, these minority agitators.

There are no hobbits in Antarctica, are there? I need to move there permanently.
Editor's Note: Should I tell this jackass about the carnivorous snow sprites in Antarctica? Nah … let them find out for themselves. Must remember to send the editors down there a note so they can send the idiot out to do some investigative journalism ...