Pixies and Lubavitchers and menorahs (oh my)

After saw the Pixies (who were awesome, by the way) last night, me and my friends Norm and Libby were accosted by this Lubavitcher youth who promptly asked me if I was Jewish. He addressed the question to me and not to Norm and Libby probably because Norm is Filipino. I said "yes, why?" and then asked me if I knew that it was Chanukah. Of course, I said yes and then he asked me if I had a menorah and what kind. I told him that it was an electric one and almost on cue, he handed me a non-electric one and a set of candles to light them with (with the candle box prominently displaying the Lubavitcher Youth office address on the side, of course) in addition to a pamphlet describing the Chanukah story. After attempting (unsuccessfully, of course) to convince him that I wouldn't use the menorah and candles that he handed to me, I eventually gave up and took them. Thus, the entire rest of the night and on my way home, I was carrying around the menorah, candles and pamphlet (I'd feel really guilty ditching it and I wanted to preserve it as part of this story; and I wonder why I have so much random shit in my apartment; sigh) and since I had nothing else to read, I read the pamphlet on the train.

To make it even worse, a few days ago when I was in Williamsburg, I got accosted by a few of them asking me the same questions. Fortunately, they were less pushy than the one on 34th Street yesterday since they didn't hand me any menorahs, candles or pamphlets after I told them that I'm Jewish and that I had a menorah and everything.

I guess that Chanukah seems to bring them out of the woodwork. Yikes.