no soup for #3

“No soup for me” answered one of the men (we’ll call him Man #1) in response to the waitress’ question.

“No soup for you” she replied flatly.

“No soup for you!” bellowed one of the other men (from this point on called Man #2) seated at the table, doing his best impersonation of Yev Kassem from the iconic 116^th episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld.

“No soup for you!” exclaimed the third prospective diner (henceforth known as Man #3). Feeling like it might endear her to the three men sitting there the waitress then let loose a loud “No soup for you!” in the hopes of improving her tip.

It was met with much laughter.

After she departed with their orders and the chuckling subsided, the man who had started the fracas (Man #1) said “That’s from Seinfeld right? The Soup Genie.”

That comment reignited the chuckling. “The Soup Genie?!” said Man #2, “What the fuck is a Soup Genie? It’s Soup Nazi.”

“Who mixes up genie and Nazi?” inquired Man #3 with a laugh.

“Did you” inquired Man #2, “watch I Dream of Nazis growing up?”

Man #3 added “The one where the astronaut crashes on a deserted island and finds a bottle and when he rubs it Barbara Eden pops out in a plume of billowing smoke?”

“Except,” #2 said, picking up where he left off, “instead of Captain Tony Nelson, it was Adolph Hitler.”

Man #1 was not amused, which increased the amusement of the other two twofold.

“And Joseph Goebbels was his bumbling friend Roger” #3 said through the beginnings of a belly-laugh.

This caused #2 to almost fall off his chair. When he regained his composure he thought about letting the topic drop but instead continued with “And Heinrich Himmler is the perpetually confounded Colonel Bellows.”

The waitress returned with some bread and butter and went about placing it on the table as the three men sat awkwardly in silence. It had the feel of three kids in the back of a classroom who are trying to stop giggling when the teacher’s head swivels in their direction. She asked if they needed anything else and they all shook their heads.

After she left Man #1 gave up on feeling defensive and began to join in on the fun. Soon the three of them were reliving their favorite episodes with the aforementioned people cast in the starring roles. (I encourage you to take a few minutes and do the same) (The striking differences between what a devoted fan of I Dream of Jeannie and a WW II historian would come up with being significantly more interesting than this story could ever aspire to be)

The accents were terrible, which made it even funnier.

When the waitress returned bearing a bowl of French Onion Man for #3, he turned to look at her, forgetting his arm was stretched out in a Nazi salute and he’d applied some of the Black Garlic Mayo under his nose. It was at this point that he noticed the waitress’ name tag.

Eva.

Not only did the laughter immediately dry up, but it was suddenly as if nobody had ever laughed at that particular table since the restaurant opened its doors in 2001.

“No soup for you” was all she said as she pivoted and stomped away.

(I must admit to struggling to name the waitress. While Eva is a homerun there was also a case to be made for Jeanie. In any case, it definitely impacted the ending as it’s clear that an Eva would stomp away while a Jeannie would, without question, storm away. There was also some soul-searching when it came to Colonel Bellows. While Goebbels as Roger was a slam dunk, I did wrestle with choosing Himmler over Adolf Eichmann. In the end I figured one Adolf is enough for any story. If you questioned why the soup chosen was French Onion… well I won’t even dignify that with an answer. I hope you enjoy these little peaks behind the writer’s curtain more than I enjoy providing them. Because I don’t.)