Ain't THAT a bitch?

Merton Sussex, Consommé Connoisseur

Essentially, I'm a simple man. I don't really require too much to be truly happy. A nice snifter of some good Cognac, a fine cigar once every few moons...perhaps an enthusiastic hum-job here and there from a middle-tier call girl. Nothing too extravagant.

However, one of my simplest pleasures is my afternoon repast. In anticipation of the next day's mid-day lunch recess, each evening before work, I take great care in preparing the sustenance I'll consume. I gently layer thinly-sliced, cured meats of smoky (yet delicate) flavor upon artisan-crafted, multi-grain breads, taking extra pains to place a healthy slab of any of a number of fine Italian cheeses upon the flesh, before smearing a hearty dollop of a grainy, high-character European dijon mustard over the whole proceedings. The next day, I consume it with relish. Not the condment, mind you, but the ENTHUSIASM. At least, as much as is befitting a gentleman of such refined breeding.

Pull the other one, Heinz.

That's why it's such a big fuckin' hairy downer whenever something goes wrong. Sometimes I forget my lunch in the 'fridge at home, and other times, I stay up too late giggling at the funnymen in the magic box who populate our nation's late-evening broadcast airwaves, and straight-up brainfart on making lunch at ALL. Those days, I consume nothing for lunch apart from my own salty tears; which, as you can well imagine, do little to satiate me.

But I wasn't prepared for the shit I had to stare down yesterday. Bear with me, but the wound is still pretty fresh.

So at yesterday's luncheon, I extracted my victuals from their carrying-tin as I always do, and laid them out before me. Then, just in case the government was watching, I poked my tongue out from between my lips, rubbed my hands together, and said, "Oh boy oh boy oh boy!" Again, nothing out of the ordinary. But still, all just preparation.

The next step is always opening my prepared soup, and placing it into the micro-wave device until it attains a temperature suitable for consumption. Typically, I choose my soup from any of a number of varieties purveyed by the Joseph A. Campbell company of Camden, New Jersey. The quality of these offerings typically pleases me, and the cherubic urchins that adorn their packaging amuse me with their humorously wholesome antics.

Y'know, the more I look at those two, the more I think someone
ought to get them in for some thyroid-disorder testing.

Today's specialty was to be "Chicken with Mini Noodles," a perennial favorite due to its hearty nature and delicate blend of savory flavors. So, you can imagine my alarm when I removed the sippy-cup lid to said soup, only to be confronted with THIS:

OH SWEET, CRISPY JESUS, NO

The HORROR! In case you're trying to figure out what the hell you're looking at, that'd be a nice, happy chunk of fuzzy, grey-green goddamned MOLD. On my mother-licking SOUP. (Also: note my sweet-ass Pac-Man lunch box. And no, it's not for sale.)

After I'd managed to bounce back from forcibly recoiling in revulsion, I got a better look at it. Evidently, the foil-sealed, pull-tab thing-a-ma-shit had separated from the edge of the cup just enough to allow a few drops of rich broth to seep between the seal and the lid, where it seems to have festered and grown into a thriving culture of potential penicillin.

As you can well imagine, my disappointment was palpable.

However, my disappointment soon turned to irritation. The size of the nasty little fungus-booger seemed to indicate that it had been trundling along undisturbed for a good while. And being as I just bought the soup during a routine supermarket jaunt last week, I'm gonna guess "a good while" translates as, "LONG before the dead-eyed graveyard-shift StockBot at the grocery store even put the sonovabitch on the shelf to begin with."

"Hello. Please kill me."

Therefore, because I am an American with notions of entitlement so prodigious and demanding that they require their own bedroom in my home, THIS AFFRONT WOULD NOT STAND. Naturally, I felt the need to alert the fine people at Campbell's of this regrettable predicament IMMEDIATELY. At once, I dialed the customer-care telephone number on the side of the cup (right next to the 'expiration date' of 11/12/09 - a likely story), which had been provided for that exact purpose, and spoke to a representative.

Long story short, Brenda was a delight. Professional, contrite, accommodating, and possessed of the exact sort of honeyed, dulcet tones you NEED to hear soothing your bruised sense of Western privilege when things go so horribly wrong in such deeply insignificant ways. I'm told that I can expect my coupons to arrive in 7-10 business days.

If I'm really being candid, I don't blame the fine folks at Campbell's. I've enjoyed their products for years, and always without incident. I know their quality control is well beyond reproach. And as such, I genuinely regret that Campbell's is the entity that has taken it upon themselves to rectify this injustice, being as the breach of the soup-containment vessel likely as not didn't occur on their watch at all. Once they release their products into the wild to seek their fortunes, any number of things can go wrong that are well beyond the auspices of their influence. My compromised soup was much more probably damaged by some apathetic teamster who shoved one too many boxes onto his truck in an attempt to trim time. Or, possibly even the aforementioned grocery-shelf-filler, who may have even dropped the cup, and didn't even stop to THINK "fuggit" before putting it out anyway.

"Sure, blame me. See what happens."

Even so, Campbell's has my replacement product en route, and for this, I am grateful. Because, regardless of whose fault my inedible soup ultimately was, Campbell's is nonetheless a fine corporate citizen, and stands behind their product unconditionally. I think there's probably a lesson for all of us in there somewhere.

So, Goodnight, Brenda...wherever you are.