A word jumped out at me from a shop window as I jogged along the Carlisle Street shopping strip this morning. The word, writ large, was

PORK.

Not remarkable, given the shop was a butcher’s. Beneath the word that sprang out at me I read 

          VEAL
 

                 CHICKEN
 

                              BEEF.
The words were laid out so they descended across the window stepwise. I slowed to take in the aesthetics of the butcher shop.
Beneath the list of viands I saw a placard which read,
HELP WANTED, (Junior).
Drop in Resume.
So I did.

“Dear Mister Meat,

I write pursuant to your request for my resume. Please consider me for the position of ‘Help (junior).’

Name: Howard Goldenberg.

Born: January 8, 1946

Qualifications: Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery;

Diploma of Obstetrics of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology; Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practice.

Achievements: Founder of the Stomach Club of Australasia.

Winner (over 60 years, male), Northern Territory Marathon, 2008, 2015. Editor, Mount Scopus College school magazine, 1962.

1972-2002, Mohel (ritual circumcisor) to the not quite devout Jews of Melbourne and Tasmania. 

I enjoy meat. I cook it, I serve it, I enjoy the pleasure it gives my family. When I say I enjoy meat, I mean it in the same way I like other men’s wives: I admire from afar. I eat only kosher. Although I’m a vegetarian I am not a gluten assassin or a fodmapster.

I do not work on the Jewish Sabbath or on the Festivals ordained by scripture. I’ll happily work on Christmas Day and Boxing Day and New Years Day and on Easter Day and on Anzac Day, so long as they do not fall on the Holy Days mentioned above. Also Halloween, Thanksgiving and Festivus.

Likewise I will gladly work on Melbourne Cup Day, a festival which never falls on a Saturday and which competes with no Biblical Festival. 

WHAT DO I BRING TO THIS POSITION THAT DIFFERENTIATES ME FROM RIVAL APPLICANTS?

1. Experience – not many juniors have experience like mine.
2. I am a good speller.
3. My degree in Surgery and my experience in performing autopsies stand me in good stead with animals, dead or alive.
4. You know I won’t pinch your sausage. 
5. As a lapsed mohel I know my way around wieners, offcuts and giblets
WARNING: DON’T GET AGEIST ON ME. I am backed by family members who are feared attack dogs of the Law.
Inevitably the competition for my services is intense. I suggest you write by return post and I shall consider your application.”