No soup for you!


Most people should already be familiar with this quote. It comes from the man known as the Soup Nazi, who is featured in a very seminal episode of Seinfeld. He expects perfection from his soup, so why would he settle for anything less from his customers? And don't even think about demanding bread. I'm sure that up until now, you probably assumed this character was nothing more than fiction, a complex caricature crafted in the minds of the Seinfeld writers. However, I've recently discovered that this characterization is more than just the stuff of nightmares; there is a Soup Nazi at work on my university campus!

First, a bit of backstory. Which, incidently, is the whole point of this quote. Each day, two different soups are prepared and propagated throughout campus, though possibly without the use of so much alliteration. At first glance, this system seems to make sense. With two soups available, customers should be able to find a viable choice, be they vegetarian or carnivorous. Unfortunately, such an outcome would require coordination between the two soups, something that seems incapable of occuring. As a result, I sometimes end up having to choose between two vegetarian options. It's like trying to identify the lesser of two evils, further complicated by the fact that one involves broccoli! As you can probably tell by this point, I have a major beef with this - namely that there's often no beef at all!

This is obviously an important issue, so I've spent a lot of time considering it. I'd concluded that the two soups must be decided in complete isolation, such that even if one of the soup choices is sabotaged, the other will remain uncompromised. It would be kind of like how they always divide up the keys necessary to launch missiles from nuclear submarines, at least according to the movies I've seen on the topic. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. Or all your soup in one pot, as the case may be. In a further attempt to confuse would-be-saboteurs (I'm sure they're out there somewhere), these choices appear to be almost entirely random. There is an official soup schedule, but it only rarely seems to match reality.

It was only a couple weeks ago that I learned the truth. One of my friends spoke with a knowledgeable cafeteria lady, and discovered that there really is just one guy who makes all the soup decisions for the entire campus. He is the central department of soup! I don't know for sure that he's exactly like the Soup Nazi, but I wouldn't be surprised. After all, he's got total control of the soup, and seems to make his selections based purely on his own fickle whims. He must be stopped! Or at least convinced to make more seafood chowder. Either way, I think I might have to pull a Zardozian style stunt in order to discover the truth. Or just to get revenge for that cream of vegetable I was forced to eat the other day.

After considering this, I have to admit that it would be interesting to be a Website Nazi. You want quote? Five dollars! The only (only?!) problem is that this site is far from good enough to make your knees buckle. In fact, I really don't expect perfection from my site, let alone my visitors. The only thing I can promise is to use a lot of souper puns. Of course, the value of this guarantee remains an open question.


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