It is not often that I get sick, but when I do I am not unlike other humans in that I require comforting while my body heals. One of the things that comforts me during this time of immunal-refurbishing is soup. I enjoy soup, but only two kinds: chicken noodle and clam chowder. Yes, I realize that chowder is not really soup. Chowder is chowder, but it is like soup in that it is served hot in a bowl, mostly liquid, and I eat it with a spoon. For this purpose, clam chowder is soup and my second favorite kind of soup.
So there I stood, in the soup aisle of the supermarket, ill in body, but excited in spirit at the prospect of purchasing what would soon be a fantastic, hot meal. Of all the cans of potential candidates for my soup purchase, I had chosen Campbell's Hearty Clam Chowder. Its label boasted true warmth and deliciousness - and why the hell not? With such a giant spoon, so much larger than the puny utensils of mortals, filled with so much fucking clam and potato and MY GOD, it was a beautiful sight. I would have been a god damned fool not to choose this New England panacea, blessed by King Neptune himself.
I grabbed the biggest can of clam and potato goodness, bought it, and drove home. At each stoplight I glanced at the passenger seat to make sure my tasty co-pilot was still safely confined in the shopping bag. It was ever-important that nothing happen to that can. I was sick, god damn it, and that can was my miracle cure. The second I arrived at home, my kitchen was called into duty - it was my command center and heating that soup was my mission. My rusty can opener almost stymied my progress, but through sheer hunger-fueled rage, I got that bastard to work. The metal was pierced and the smell of clam and potato leaked into the air. Actually it didn't smell like I imagined it would. There was no aroma of sea-side wonder, or heartland potato. I pretended I wasn't bothered as I slopped the pale slime into a pot and placed it on the stove. The waiting - oh good god, the waiting was awful. I was so hungry, doubly so because I was so damned excited about this soup!
I heard a bubble from the pot and quickly grabbed a ladle and slopped some of this thick, potentially delicious elixir into my waiting bowl. I snatched a spoon and filled it with potato and clam and sauce, raised it to my mouth and… was disappointed. The soup had no taste. It was as if Campbell's had replaced all the potatoes with soggy pieces of tube sock and all the clam with erasers. I slopped some on a napkin which touched the bowl and in the five minutes of misery I would have otherwise called "eating," the soup had GLUED THE NAPKIN TO THE BOWL. I was effectively eating glue. Thanks, Campbell's. Thank you for the tube sock, eraser, glue soup.
If I had a time machine, I would have jumped into it at that moment and gone back to twenty minutes prior to shout down the aisle of that supermarket, "DON'T GET THAT SOUP. IT IS TERRIBLE AND LOOKS NOTHING LIKE THE LABEL!" To which original timeline Me would have replied, "That's stupid, look how much fucking potato is on that spoon!"
Rating: Zero. Zero fucking cans of soup out of five, because what I ate wasn't soup.
Written by Mike
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