Sunday Scribblings: Miracle

One of my goals for the school year is to write regularly. I've wanted to participate in "Sunday Scribblings" for a while and now is the time...no more excuses. I'm going to post my Sunday Scribblings on my blog so I can include a link to my blog over at the Sunday Scribblings website. I feel like this exposes me a little, and that makes me nervous. But I need to get over that sometime, don't I? Please do not feel compelled to comment. I do enjoy comments and would welcome whatever you have to say. I'm not posting for praise though. This is simply a time for me to flex my out-of-shape writing muscles and see if I can't start to inch myself towards my writing goals. While I'm sure much of what I write will have some basis in fact, please consider everything I write as "fiction."

I never thought a simple can of soup would be my undoing. OK, maybe I was being a tad over-dramatic, but if not my undoing, then certainly one thing that would stand between me and an A in advertising.

My professor had just announced our homework assignment, due in 3 days: Write a print ad for Progresso soup. He urged us to consider the target audience, to pay attention to the layout and design, and turn in only our best work.

"One last thing, " he added. "You will need to actually buy and eat a can of Progresso soup."

It wasn't that I didn't like soup. I loved soup. All kinds of soup. In fact, nothing beat a bowl of hot soup on a crisp fall afternoon while working on advertising homework. I was a huge soup fan.

However, I was a poor college student who couldn't afford to spend frivolously on things like name-brand soup. More than that, however, I was a poor college student who was really, really bad at managing her finances. I had worked over the summer to save money for school, but most of that went to books and rent. Oh yeah...and a really cute fall wardrobe.

I had a part time job, but was in between paychecks. I had just gone through the rounds of paying registration fees, lab fees, buying a parking pass, and taking advantage of the tasty 2 taco deal at Taco Bell (more than once.) I was seriously broke.

I may have been able to accost the couch cushions to raise 49 cents for a can of generic tomato soup. It was even possible that I could have rounded up 89 cents for the can of Campbell's. But Progresso? No way.

Progross was the fanciest, most expensive soup in the grocery store. I would gaze longingly at the blue labels in the soup aisle as I loaded up on Top Ramen and Jiffy Muffin mixes. For now, the can's of $1.75 soup were simple out of reach--a goal. I envisioned the day I'd come back to this very grocery store, a wealthy advertising executive. I'd drive up in my Porsche and walk in wearing my Liz Claiborne suit and sporting a $150 hair cut.

I pictured my rich self loading up the cart with expensive cuts of meat, fresh squeezed orange juice, halibut and those fancy mushrooms that cost $15 a pound. And of course, I'd buy only Porgresso soup. Not condensed, but 1 and a half servings of $1.75 soup.

I tossed my bag onto the worn sofa and sighed dramatically as I came home from class that day. Beatty kicked open the door to her room where she'd been studying for an evening class. "How was your day?" She asked.

I told her my sad story. "I'm being forced to buy the most expensive soup in the grocery store." I whined. "I might as well have been asked to buy a Rolex in order to write an ad for fine watches."

Beatty was nothing if not empathetic. She knew what it was like to be short on money. Just the other day when we were driving back from campus, she'd begged me to stop when she saw a homeless man sitting on the side of the road with a cardboard sign and a cup held out for change.

"I really feel like I need to do something." She'd said. I couldn't argue with "the feeling," so I pulled over so she could relieve her conscience. Beatty started to rifle through her wallet and soon moved onto explore the depths of her purse, a bit flustered. When she turned out her pockets searching for change things got a bit awkward.

"Um, I don't have any money," she said, looking at me expectantly.

What? She wanted ME to give him money? She was the one who wanted to stop. I would have kept going. I felt like I was a step away from sitting on the street corner myself, not in a position to be handling out what little money I had.

As it turned out, I did have very little cash. One dollar to be exact. No quarters, dimes or nickles. Not even a "buy one get one" coupon for frozen yogurt. Grudgingly, I handed my last dollar to the homeless man and silently pledged to ignore all of Beatty's pleadings in the future.

"I'm sure I'll figure out a way to get the soup." I said. "It's just a dollar seventy-five for crying out loud."

Over the next few hours my story probably slipped out once or twice as roommates came and went. When it came right down to it, I was embarrassed at being so careless with my money.

Sorry, this is so long, I'm going to stop here. I have 3 more pages of this story and I'm just going to leave it in Word for now. At the end of the story there is a little miracle that really isn't a miracle, but it's still a good story. Maybe I'll post the rest another time....maybe.