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February 21, 2007
Spinster Safety Soups
Ever since I saw that episode of "Six Feet Under" where the woman living all alone chokes to death on her TV dinner and no one finds her until she's kind of rotten and covered with ants, I've been paranoid that it might happen to me. Not that I'd have much of a chance to rot -- I think Pica would dig in before that -- but I do see choking to death as one of the hazards of living alone.
There are products for single people afraid of slip and fall accidents, intruders and the like, but you can choke to death in a matter of seconds -- far too fast for anyone to come and save you. So the solution needs to be preventative.
I think some manufacturer should therefore market a line of soups addressing this concern. I don't think most men really like soup all that much, so we should focus on selling soup to women. (Maybe you could have He-Man Hashes, where all the food was chopped up really small?)
"Spinster Safety Soups" would feature soups with only really really small chunks (if any), so that nothing could get caught in your throat. You'd find some quack doctor to testify that the chunks were scientifically designed to be safe.
The ads would have to be really scary -- e.g.,
Shot of woman choking at her dinner table ... grasping for the phone ... slowly falling out of frame ...
Voice: "DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!!! ... Play it safe ... with Spinster Soups."
Maybe the serving suggestion would be a really shallow bowl so that you didn't accidentally pass out and drown in it like in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
Posted by mary at February 21, 2007 1:00 PM
Comments
For guys, soup is great. It counts as a vegetable.
You could market this to parents of young children as well, see this article. (See, it says "product modification," i.e. chopping up the soup bits.) I could not find a breakdown of how many foreign objects causing choking deaths were associated with soup, unfortunately.
Posted by: Rich Magahiz ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.marysgreatideas.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 21, 2007 4:26 PM
I'm not so sure soup's not for guys... remember the MAN-HANDLERS? I think they were a Campbell's product. On the other hand, I believe that part of the marketing was that the soups were extra-chunky. Chunks=manliness. No sissy purees for these guys!
I've been consuming a lot of cough drops lately, and a couple of nights ago I was, in fact, lying in bed and wondering what would happen if I choked on a cough drop as I was falling asleep.
Posted by: melissa at February 21, 2007 9:21 PM
Firstly, I can't believe you remember any episodes of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.
Secondly, men love soup. Soup is manly in every way. But only some soups. French onion is manly, cucumber leek is not. Borscht is manly, a bisque is not. And so forth.
Posted by: justin at February 22, 2007 7:35 AM
I think the fact that Campbell's had to specifically market a soup for men proves my point.
I'm with you on borsct vs bisque, Justin -- and to add to the list of manly soups: chili is manly, venison stew is manly. But French onion?? I donno. I guess it does have a lot of cheese. Maybe if you changed the name to "beef, cheese and onion" soup?
It's true that soup is more manly than salad, so in that sense, if it's counted as a vegetable in a meal, it's manly, especially if it's a meat soup.
Posted by: maryherself at February 22, 2007 10:56 AM
And chilled fruit soups are teh gay.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Posted by: Rich Magahiz at February 22, 2007 11:39 AM
Chili is NOT soup. I don't think venison stew is soup either: hence the name "stew".
I wonder exactly what the liquid/solid ratio is that makes something a soup, vs. a stew (this could be the condiment controversy all over again!).
Posted by: melissa at February 22, 2007 12:03 PM
I believe that part of the marketing was that the soups were extra-chunky. Chunks=manliness.
YouTube has some nice evidence of the manly soups of years past.
Posted by: Spine at February 23, 2007 3:34 PM
Melissa has posed a question for the philosophers. And Spine has made me hungry. If there are "burgers" in your soup, is that really still a soup?
Posted by: maryherself at February 23, 2007 3:52 PM
You have to compare it with the International Platinum-Iridium Soup Standard in Paris.
Posted by: Rich Magahiz at February 24, 2007 2:44 PM
They used to have an actual platinum-iridium bowl of soup which they had to keep in a special refrigerator and dust at regular intervals so that all the measurements would be accurate, but now the soup standard is just based on the wavelength of light emitted by 1 nanogram of souponium, which is less interesting, if you ask me.
Posted by: melissa at February 25, 2007 1:17 PM
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