Esther and Mordecai
Esther 1:1 to 8:8
1:1 King Ahasuerus of Persia would often party with very important men. One day he and some dignitaries were drinking and the king sent for his pretty queen Vashti to be brought in and paraded around before the guys. He insisted she come in wearing something skimpy and shake it and spin for the entertainment of his little drunken frat boy rooster rager. Meanwhile the queen just happened to be busy throwing a hen party for some of her female friends and she refused the indignity of the king's demands.
The king asked his prestigious guests what he should do with such an uppity wife who didn't know her proper place. The men all concurred that if she went unpunished, soon women all over the country might stand up to their husbands' ridiculous chauvinism also. Soon women all over the conquered empire would catch on and start demanding equal pay for equal work and other such displays of proper respect. The only thing to do was to send out a written order in all languages that the men rule over women in all matters great or small, and women must be totally submissive to men at all times. That should put a stop to feminism. The order was declared, written, and published. Queen Vashti was stripped of her crown and all of her wealth, and kicked to the royal curb.
2:3 The king went shopping for a new wife so naturally he held a beauty contest for all the young virgins of the kingdom, with marriage to him as the big prize for the winner. One such young beauty was Esther who was a Jewish girl living with her cousin Mordecai.
The girls of the contest were first sequestered for the standard one year of quarantine. That at least allowed time to weed out any of them that were sick, or pregnant, or uppity, or Jewish. Then they were all sent to the house of concubines where they lived and were sometimes called to the king’s bedroom to perform the sexual pleasure part of the competition.
Whenever the girls were paraded around like livestock before the king and his lecherous cadre of old men, and made to shake their booties and show their cleavage in a slutty fashion, Esther totally out-shined all the other young victims. And so the king married her and made her the new queen. Esther was so proud, and so far she had managed to keep her Jewish heritage a secret.
At the big coronation ceremony Esther’s cousin Mordecai was mingling with the crowd and overheard a plot by some men who planned to kill the king. He warned Esther who then warned the king and the conspirators were hanged. The king was most pleased. His life was saved, and besides who doesn't like a good hanging.
3:1 One day the king promoted a man named Haman to be the number one prince and everyone bowed when Prince Haman came by. Everyone that is except Mordecai who, being Jewish, refused to bow down to any mere man. Haman hated Jews in general anyway and wanted to kill them all. He convinced the king to agree to make killing of Jews a legal sport and the order was given that Jew-killing season would start on the thirteenth of the month. Mordecai let his cousin Queen Esther know about the new Jew killing law and told her to go to the king about it. The problem was she could be killed just for going to the king uninvited, let alone being a Jew, but Mordecai insisted she risk it.
5:1 Esther got all dressed up in something tight and sexy and went to her husband the king. He held out his scepter and thus the guards didn't kill her right off. So far so good. She invited both the King and Prince Haman to come over to her queenly quarters for feasting and debauchery the next night. They accepted.
Prince Haman went home and bragged to his wife, Zeresh, about the invitation to party at the queen's place. Haman was pretty proud about that. On the other hand, there was this Jewish guy named Mordecai who was still alive and not bowing and it bothered him a lot. He ordered a tall gallows built that night so they could hang Mordecai at Esther's dinner party tomorrow.
The King had insomnia that night and stayed up studying up on current events. He found out it was really Mordecai who had foiled the earlier assassination plot. The next morning he went to Prince Haman and asked what he should do for a truly honorable and deserving loyal servant. Haman naturally assumed that he himself was the one the king was talking about so he described a generous reward for such a loyal follower. The king said "Very good Haman. Now go get Mordecai and give him some expensive new clothes and a fine horse and then personally parade him here on the horse." Haman was shocked and dismayed but he obeyed and then he hurried to get to Esther's party on time.
7:1 The Queen’s big shindig went on for a couple of days. On the second day of wild revelry the king asked Esther what he could do for her to show his appreciation for throwing such a swell party. She said "How about saving me and Mordecai and all of the other Jews from Prince Douchenozzle over there?"
Prince Douchenozzle made a run for it. The king set out looking for him but the prince circled back and went to Esther's bedroom to beg her for mercy. The king came in and saw Haman in the queen's bedroom and he went ballistic. He said "What the...? Are you now going to rape my queen right here in front of me?" Haman was quickly hanged on the very same gallows that he had intended for Mordecai and then the king calmed down. There's nothing quite like a little poetic justice to sooth the nerves. Cousin Mordecai was then promoted to the princely position that Haman had held.
8:8 In those days the Persians never ever took old crappy laws off the books, so the Jews could still be killed starting on the thirteenth. To counter this, Mordecai convinced the king to make a new law which allowed the Jews to legally kill anyone who tried to kill them first. There ensued a lot of fighting and killing between the Jews and the haters but the Jews mostly won. The Jews killed about 75,000 haters before things finally calmed down. Just for good measure, Esther had Hamon's innocent sons hanged as well.
Ever since those days the Jews have celebrated Esther and Mordecai’s hanging of their enemies with an annual two day feast called Purim.
