After running across the street to pick up some soup for a quick lunch today, I was informed when I reached my destination (The Village Market on Oakbrook Drive) that the Mediterranean Chicken Potato soup wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow.

Normally, I’d have a different reaction than the one I surprised myself with today. For instance, if a fast food place forgets to drop a sandwich in the bag and I don’t realize it until I left the store, I might be irritated. If a steakhouse runs out of porterhouse cuts, I’d shrug and order the ribeye. If the Frosty machine at Wendy’s is on the fritz, I’d take it in stride and order a vanilla Coke. But when the man at the Village Market told me the soup wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow, I just felt so melancholy.

Sure, I could run home and heat up a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup and do a better job of playing the hand I’ve been dealt, but I know that’s not going to fill the void. So instead, I ordered a few chicken wings and a roll (the roll is typically sold in a package deal with the soup). While the wings are excellent and the rolls bring forth vivid memories of the normal soup accompaniment, I still felt hollow inside.

I never considered myself to be a real soup guy, nor have a designated place and person to serve as my official soup supplier but today I realized that I am a soup guy with a soup place and am at the complete mercy of the Sultan of Soup’s decision to brew up a kettle of piping hot Mediterranean Chicken Potato soup – like it or not.

Hopefully, things go well at the Village Market this evening – well enough so as not to impede the progress of soup production anyway. I’ll be back tomorrow and hope to not have my emotions toyed with again.

I think I finally understand the sentiment behind that old Seinfeld episode.