Chicken Soup for the Soul

[pepper67]

Okay, call me cold-hearted, but I laughed at that story. First of all, I don't buy for a second that he never looked in that canister when his wife wasn't home. Second of all, his wife actually went through the motions - miming scooping something out of the canister - every single time she cooked or baked? Sir, I am sorry for your loss, but your wife was crazy.

That's for sure. And, you know, she could have saved a lot of time by putting the 'love' into a salt cellar and shaking it over whatever she was baking.

Maybe I think about that type of thing way too much.

I've never read any of these books though. Just hearing about them is enough to make me steer clear.

[kostgard]

That's for sure. And, you know, she could have saved a lot of time by putting the 'love' into a salt cellar and shaking it over whatever she was baking.

Maybe I think about that type of thing way too much.

Hee. Maybe a little.

What's worse - if I am remembering the story correctly, and I might not be since it was quite a while ago - I think the story said she kept the canister on some high shelf. So I always imagined her breaking out the step ladder, pulling the stupid thing down, then being all sneaky and crap - making sure her back was to her husband so he couldn't see that the canister was EMPTY as she mimed scooping her "secret ingredient" out.

I wonder if she always used the same amount (like say a teaspoon) or if she made some things with more love than others. Like a strawberry pie got two cups of love but a tuna casserole got only half a teaspoon of "well, I don't hate you..."

[shawnalanne]

Pepper67 said:

That's for sure. And, you know, she could have saved a lot of time by putting the 'love' into a salt cellar and shaking it over whatever she was baking.

Mr. ShawnaLanne is just shocked when I open a can of soup and heat it in the microwave for him. That extra step of 'love' would guarantee that I'd never do it at all.

[dwanollah]

I wonder if she always used the same amount (like say a teaspoon) or if she made some things with more love than others. Like a strawberry pie got two cups of love but a tuna casserole got only half a teaspoon of "well, I don't hate you..."

*hysterics*

I have to confess, I worked at the Big and gNarly bookstore when these books first came out and I was managing the bestsellers at the time so I had to stock ten million copies of them and at least GLANCE at them and be familiar enough with them to help customers, and yes, they sucked wanger, but...

... one of my coworkers and I found a kernel of something in one. This guy had made a list of all the stuff he wanted to do in his life, and was setting goals and doing these things... stuff like "visit all 7 continents" and "skydive." So at one of our Pagan Tea Parties, me and a couple coworker friends made up our own lists. This was a big, daring thing for me, who'd grown up hearing that it was "too dangerous" for me to, like, drive myself 20 minutes away to the beach, much less think of "unrealistic" things like going to college or meeting Duran Duran.

My List was 112 items long. I have done over half of 'em. I check it every six months, write a reflection on what I've done, and then tuck it back into my journal. The Husband-Type Man will often plan surprises around my List; he once sneaked me off to Florence because going to Italy was on The List!

That doesn't mean the Chicken Soup franchise doesn't suck the big one, mind.

[colette]

Dwanollah, I love you for your list.

[underjoyed]

After she died, he looked in the canister and saw that there was only a scrape of paper with the word "love" written on it sitting in the bottom. Of course the poor widower breaks down in tears.

See, upon first reading this (on this thread, not in the book I should add), I thought that the wife had a jar full of little scraps of paper with the word "love" written on that she was physically adding to the recipe and there was only that one piece left. I mean, thanks, but I'm quite capable of adding my own fibre to my diet if I think I need some extra.

It also led me to assume that the widower breaks down in tears not because of the pathos of that last, solitary scrap of paper, but because of the sudden realisation that a loved one was, in fact, batshit insane and he only found out about it after she'd died.

[pepper67]

I wonder if she always used the same amount (like say a teaspoon) or if she made some things with more love than others. Like a strawberry pie got two cups of love but a tuna casserole got only half a teaspoon of "well, I don't hate you..."

And I was worrying that I thought about that too much! ::shakes head at kostgard::

Wonderful list, Dwanollah. I hope you get to accomplish all of it.

[kanding]

Dwanollah, I love your Husband-Type Man for your list.

[bbug]

Someone got me the college student Chicken Soup book when I graduated high school. There were maybe two realistic sounding and slightly moving stories in it. Some of them were so obviously made up (like with professors giving students C's when they deserved A's to motivate them, and then giving the student an A at the end of the semester) with plot twists that violate like EVERY SINGLE POLICY that universities have, that I felt really insulted. In fact, so many of the stories were like "So and so fucked with my mind, but it turned out okay in the end, so thank you Jesus!" that I was actually disturbed by the book. I think I actually tossed the stupid thing out.

[Deleted]

aims said:

Hey Guinastagia you mean this one?

Peasoup

Yep, that's the one! Thanks!

My aunt once bought my dad one of the CSFS desk calenders, where you tear off the page every day. We used it for scrap paper to write phone messages on.