Quote of the day: If Paul Krugman says he's not all that worried about inflation, that's good enough for me—only there's this can of soup . . .

"I don't fear inflation nearly as much as I fear the fear of inflation."
—Paul Krugman, in yesterday's newspaper

"I paid $1.89 for a can of plain, ordinary Campbell's condensed cream of mushroom soup????"
—a shopper who, er, would rather remain anonymous, to . . . well, let's say it could have been to that somewhat sympathetic-looking pigeon on the sidewalk outside the supermarket

For the record, the anonymous shopper wishes it known that the shelf price of the cream of mushroom soup was something like $1.59, he's pretty sure. But he had decided he was going to get the damned thing, and for once in his life he wasn't going to do a 20-minute should-I-or-shouldn't-I routine over the price. (Even Hamlet could make up his mind faster.) Then when the price came up $1.89, and he saw that the scanner seemed to have read the correct item, for once in his life he wasn't going to make a big deal about possibly being overcharged a lousy 30 cents.

(Actually, he doesn't often use fancy phrases like "a lousy 30 cents." Maybe he just figured that anyone who goes to the checkout counter prepared to pay $1.59 for a can of cream of mushroom soup might just as well pay $1.89. Think of it as a sort of "stoopid tax.")

The thing is, he had a really, really lot of leftover chicken. Hey, the previous week's sale had chickens for 69 cents a pound. He hadn't seen whole chickens at 69 cents a pound since . . . well, he couldn't remember when. It occurred to him that you could chunk up some of the leftover chicken on a nice bed of noodles, and with some kind of gravy or sauce you'd be in business.

He'd even mentioned it on the phone to his mother, and mentioned that he still had the drippings from the chicken to make a sauce with. Now, she's within days of her 87th birthday, and while her short-term memory, alas, if not exactly gone, has become alarmingly unreliable, when she talks about things that don't involve short-term memory she sounds pretty much like her actual self. And until she moved into a senior residence three and a half years ago, she was still cooking most of her own meals. So when she suggested how many things you can do with a can of cream of mushroom soup, it planted the idea.

(When he eventually told her how much he paid for the damned can of soup, she was flabbergasted, as he knew she would be. She said, "I wouldn't have bought it.")

He didn't use the mushroom soup with that particular chicken. As his mother still likes to say, "There are so many things you can do with chicken." And now, beyond keeping the can in the pantry for a nice feeling of security, he doesn't know when he can use it.

What do you do with a $1.89 can of Campbell's soup? He's thought about buying a display case for it—Andy Warhol may have been spoofing with his Campbell's-soup art, but he isn't. About the only way he can think of to use the damned can of soup is under the following precise convergence of circumstances:

(a) He's got a really, really lot of leftover chicken. And—

(b) He's got some nice noodles to put it on. And—

(c) He's got the queen of England popping in for dinner, and she's specifically said "not to fuss, just something from the fridge [or whatever she says for "fridge"] will be fine."

Or if not the queen of England, then maybe at least Professor Krugman.