the next post (or reposting Khin Khee)

This is a repost from my original AOL Journal {Debra's Daily Dose}, Thursday 9 December 2004. John Scalzi was the blogfather at that time and he would pick a topic every weekend for a writing assignment for J-land at general. Of course there was not mandatory participation, but there was some very interesting reading and writing. This entry is the result of one such weekend writing assignment. Hope you enjoy it!

John Scalzi's assignment: It's the Holidays! Create your own festive Holiday Character and give him, her or it at least one seasonally appropriate magical ability (or use its native traits and skills to save the holiday season).

My response:

Khin Khee, the camel cricket, has a very special talent that is absolutely essential to the completion of Santa's mission. Now, you may be familiar with the miners' best friend, the canary. This fine feathered friend would descend into the pits with the first few miners. He would be merrily chirping along, letting the men know it was safe to go further. The canary would stop singing, indeed cease living, if noxious fumes and poisonous gases that are odorless to the human olfactory organs infiltrated is little lungs. He was the early-warning system of days gone by.

Well, Khin Kee, the camel cricket, is also called a cave cricket. He likes the dark and can function quite well is those places. Now, I don't know if YOU'VE ever been in the sorta situation which would necessitate peering up or down a chimney. I certainly have not. Nor have I ever managed to get stuck or jump freely down one, let alone ascend to the rooftop.

But Santa, well, he NEEDS to be able to see down, skinny through, do his business, and alight back to the sleigh so that he can go on to the next chimney. Of course, not all homes have chimneys. But for those that do, Khin Kee, the camel cricket, has the most important task of preceding the jolly fat elf down the chimney to give the all-clear signal.

Why, if it weren't for Khin Kee, the camel cricket, who knows in what state of affairs we all would be?

That is why, my friends, the children with chimneys sing with glee, their joy for the Khin Kee, the camel cricket. You'd've heard of him, before this, I am sure, if there were but more homes with chimneys, galore.