Soup Lovers !! Pity me !! (long & silly)

[NinetyWt]

I love soup. Even *store-bought* soup, that comes in a can. I don't mean stew; I mean soup with a clear broth base. Heck, I even like a cup of clear broth (with a few goldfish crackers swimmin' in it).

Soup (especially chicken noodle) is my favorite midnite snack. Whether I've been up late working, or tossing back a couple of cold ones, its golden glow sits lightly and soothingly on my tummy. Then it's off to nite-nite, snuggling under the covers while the warm fuzzies carry me of to sleep.

Last nite, it being New Year's Eve, I decided to go see my buddy, the Mountain Goat. I figured to stay the nite, not wanting to run the gantlet of assorted drunks and officers of the law in the wee hours. The Mountain Goat is not a soup lover. He does not keep soup in the pantry. Last time I asked if he had soup (at midnite snack time of course) all he had was Chef-Boyardee Lasagna. Gack. So, as I was digging in my 'fridge for coldbeer to put in the cooler, my eye espied a square Tupperware with that familiar golden luminescence. Leftover chicken noodle soup! "Aha!" I thought. "There's my midnite snack!!" Into the cooler it went.

As luck would have it, the Mountain Goat got waylaid by a last-minute project. A friend in the country had a gut-shot deer staggering around his house. That is the *horsey* part of the country, with huge houses and air conditioned barns, and now this bloody 200-lb 8-point wallowing around in the manicured flowerbeds making a mess like a hand grenade in a barrel of oatmeal. So Mountain Goat was requested to come up and dispatch the hapless animal, which he did. Then he had to clean it.

Well, it had to be done. So I sit by the fire at Mountain Goat's, reading the funnies, sipping my beer. After the funnies, I put another log on the fire, and work the cryptoquip... then the jumble... then the crossword... another log.. another beer .. then I grab yesterday's paper. I work the cryptoquip... then the jumble... another log.. another beer ... pretty soon I'm cozy, sleepy, and about to drift off to dreamland. Finally the deer cleaning is over. Mountain Goat gets to the house about 11:30.

He makes a drink. We talk for a while. My eyes are getting very heavy. Me: "Honey, would you heat up my soup?" He: "Soup?" Me: "Yeah, I brought some in a Tupperware. By the way, put two spoonfuls of rice in it". He: "Two tablespoons?" Me: "yeah". He: "OK".

Next,as I lay back in the recliner, drifting in and out of sleep, I vaguely hear him puttering in the kitchen. Gosh, he's taking a long time, I think. Finally, he re-enters the living room. With a plate. "A plate??" my fuzzy mind thinks. "Soup fits on a plate??" Said plate is now placed in my lap.

What a bewildering sight I behold! Here is a lump, covering the entire plate, of ...... mush? Looks like my soup had a head-on collision with a pan of dressing. Noodles lie helter-skelter on a bed of an unrecognizable mound studded with rice grains and chicken chunks. The whole mess is colored an unsettling grayish-brown. And it positively reeks of garlic.

Staring at him in shock, I pule "what is this?? And where is my soup ??" with a growing alarm that somehow my soup has been transmogrified. He: "uh.. this is your soup". Me: this is NOT soup!!

Of course, I had to try to eat it. It was a very strange experience. I ended up nibbling 'round the edges, then giving up. I think he sat up after I went to bed and finished it off.

This morning he explained his logic: "If I'm eating something, I'm eating it. I don't drink my food". I said, "yeah, you missed the point. Soup is supposed to be runny". He said, "yeah, I figured out what I did. After I put the two spoons of rice in it, it was still runny. So I said to myself, I'll fix this !!......." Famous last words.

Moral: If Baby says she wants soup, she wants soup. Not stew. Not mush. Not the Mountain Goat special-of-the-day. Soup !!

Happy New Year, ya'll!

[Mockingbird]

Wow. Just wow.

[NinetyWt]

Correction: the above should read "a barrel full of wet oatmeal. Sorry.

[rocking chair]

what on earth did he add to the soup??? it sounds frightful.

[NinetyWt]

It turned out to be Keebler crackers (the slightly sweet kind), rice, soy sauce and garlic powder.

He kept on addin' stuff because he was trying to combat the "runny-ness" ~ in retrospect this is so funny thinking about him trying to "dry up" about a cup of liquid ~ with crackers