Sunday, March 20, 2005

Book III
The Book of Esther continues
Perek Gimmel

Getting ahead in Ach's kingdom was really very easy. For example: George Tenet, who screwed up the Gulf War intelligence, received a Medal of Freedom; Condaleeza Rice who lied about Al Queda under oath was made Secretary of State; and Alberto Gonzalez the man with the lackadaisical view on torture that made possible the Al Garib prison scandal was rewarded with the post of High Inquisitor. So it was no surprise to anyone when Ach promoted Memuchan, the lowly junior advisor from Book I, to the position of Viceroy, meaning assistant to Roy

Furthermore, coming, as it did on the heels of that whole Jeff/Jim Gannon thing, no one was exactly shocked when Memuchan took an alias and began calling himself Haman, son of Hammedasah, the Aggagite.

The king immidiately decreed that everyone had to bow and kneel before Haman, or they wouldn't be allowed into the presidentail town meetings or press briefings. Unfortunately, the king didn't quite realize that the word "everyone" included himself, and he was pissed when he had to bow to his subordinate. But, the law is the law.

Now, Mudcha and Haman were old Yeshiva rivals. They both had gone to Telze, and Mudcha had been Haman's frat sponsor in the fraternity Aleph-Lamed-Reish-Nun (ani lo rotze nashim). Part of frat rules is that a brother never has to do anything a younger pledge tells him. So, Mudcha decided not to bow to Haman, always flashing his old ALRN frat ID card at him. Haman was furious that Mudcha wouldn't bow to him. He also hated mimes. And, he also recalled the times during Haman's initiation that Mudcha and the other older Jewish members of the fraternity stuffed his head into a toilet after ten of them had used it. Rashi says ten men used the toilet so that there would be a minyan.

Overflowing with jealous and anger, Haman decided to kill all the Jews who had never let him take part in their fun rituals such as fasting, praying, and refraining from sexual relations for 99% of their lives. And since he hated mimes he figured that this would be a good way to kill two birds with one stone. Haman, however, couldn't decide when to do it. So, held a lottery to pick the day. Rashi says that in truth Haman couldn't remember the names of any months, or even count past four and was just too embarrassed to tell anyone. The lot was cast, and it fell on March 17th, and because Haman didn't want to upset the St. Patrick's Day celebrations with bloodshed, he cast the lot again and again until it landed on the 14th day of Adar. Haman quickly checked and to his glee saw this was the only good day on the entire calendar to commit genocide.

Next, Haman went to king Ach and told him that he wanted to kill a few million people. Ach, who was quite drunk and in the middle of the Twilight Zone Marathon, said "Speak to Cheny." Having no idea what this meant, but assuming it meant, "go for it," Haman wrote up a bill that decreed that all the Jews should be killed, annihilated, and wiped out on the 14th day of day of Adar - especially Mudcha. To add to the suffering and degredation, Haman additionally decreed that the Jews could no longer be sold SUVs AND he tacked a rider onto the bill giving himself a raise and eliminating the tax on dividends and capital earnings. Those last provisions were cut in committee and only the Kill-All-Jews-Especially-Mudcha and SUV sections made it into law.

Haman celebrated with a triumphant jig, and brought the king a bottle of Don Perignon to celebrate. Unfortunately it was after 9:30 PM and the King was already tucked into bed, so Haman drank alone, cackling gleefully.

To be continued...

From the writing of AP Kores.
Edited by DovBear