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Gentle readers, I ask for your participation in an effort to create and collect the world's largest collection of Shaggy Soup Stories!

All qualifying stories will be awarded a personalized soupsong prize (VERY exciting!) and, even headier, will be posted permanently on soupsong.com in a special area entitled, what else, "Shaggy Soup Stories," with full credit given to each author or, contrariwise, with the right to remain anonymous.

PLEASE SEND ALL ENTRIES TO PSOLLEY@MINDSPRING.COM BY MARCH 29, 2003!

So what IS a "shaggy soup story"? Obviously a close relative of the "shaggy dog story," which is defined as a long and complicated story that builds momentum and suspense...only to culminate in a really stupid punchline, either groanworthy or a deflating let down.

A "shaggy soup story," accordingly, must involve soup in some way, either in the narrative or in the punchline.

For inspiration, you can look at some whoppers on www.heggen.net/entertainment/shaggy_dogs or on www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Glade/8851/shaggy.htm. But just to get you in the mood, here are a few examples from those sites:

1. The groanworthy ending variation that upends a popular saying: The Chess Players

   All the top chess players show up at a hotel for an important international tournament. They spend the first hour hanging around the lobby telling each other of their recent victories. Their crows get progressively louder and louder as each one tries to outdo the others. The hotel manager gets tired of this, so he throws them out of the lobby and tells them to go to their rooms. "If there's one thing I can't stand," he says, "it's chess nuts boasting by an open foyer."

2. Another really awful one: Gandhi's Health Problems

   Ghandi walked barefoot everywhere, to the point that his feet became quite thick and hard. Even when he wasn't on a hunger strike, he did not eat much and became quite thin and frail. He also was quite a spiritual person. Furthermore, due to his diet, he ended up with very bad breath. He became known as a super-calloused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis.

3. The bathetic close: On The Train

   A young Scout was travelling on a long train trip across Canada. Sitting across from him was an older man, very neatly and precisely dressed. Across his knees he carried a briefcase upon which he nervously drummed his fingers. Since he looked to be rather an angry sort of man, the boy didn't like to start a conversation.

   Presently the man opened the briefcase and took out two paper napkins, a pocket knife and an apple. Carefully he peeled and cored the apple. He placed all the peelings on one of the two napkins and folded it into a neat parcel. Then he moved his briefcase to one side, stood up, and walked to the end of the coach. By craning his neck, the boy was able to watch him move out onto the little platform at the end of the car and throw the parcel of peel onto the tracks.

   When the man returned he dusted his hands, sat down and lifted the briefcase back up across his knees. He picked up the peeled and cored apple, carefully cut it into thin slices, placed the slices onto the second napkin and made a similar neat parcel. To the boy's amazement he then repeated his routine. He moved to the end of the coach and threw the parcel on the line. When he returned, he picked up his briefcase, took out two more napkins and an orange which he began to peel...

   (Now you spin out the story, having the man take all kinds of fruit, one at a time, from his case, peel each piece and throw away first the peel and then the fruit itself )

   At last the young Scout could contain himself no longer and simply had to ask the man what he was doing.

   "I'm making a fruit salad," said the man.

   "Then why do you keep throwing it away?" the boy asked.

   "I should think that was obvious," snapped the man. "I'm throwing it away because I don't like fruit salad!"