Mr. Monk Used My Noodle on THIS Investigation

My favorite TV series, “Monk,” may have ended with one of the best series finales EVER the other night, but the spirit of Monk will live on whenever and wherever a mystery arises. (Or a picture frame is crooked, or a napkin is out of place.)
Or when there’s potential for a fraud case to crack, such as Campbell’s claim that every single can of its chicken noodle soup has 32 feet of noodles. Not just every 10th can, or every 100th, but every single one.
I couldn’t believe it when I saw the commercial touting such a patently outrageous figure, and neither could anybody else I told. After all, we all know how small the can is: The fact that 32 feet of anything could be in such a tiny cylinder is preposterous! Patently ridiculous. Defiant of the imagination.
Indeed, such a claim demands to be challenged. To be discovered for the flat-out lie it is and exposed to the American public. No, not just the American public, but the entire world, and perhaps, the universe.
So I asked myself WWMD: What Would Monk Do? Why, of course, he’d investigate. So, armed with a case of wipes and with assistants at my elbows, I embarked on an experiment to expose the Campbell’s Kids as the lying little rugrats they are.
Here’s what happened:
The cast:
* I was Monk, of course, as I’ve got a few OCD tendencies of my own.

* 8-year-old Vincent played Lt. Randy Disher (Vincent doesn’t have enough of a cookie duster to be Capt. Leland Stottlemeyer).
* Kate portrayed the dutiful assistant, initially cast as Sharona on “Monk,” later replaced with Natalie. She handed me wipes when my fingers got too chicken-juicy and chronicled the event for the camera, from the placement of the first noodle to the last.
I had to spurn her advice, as Monk was wont to do with Sharona and Natalie, because, well, because she either just doesn’t have enough OCD tendencies herself or she’s scientifically challenged or she’s just a lousy damn investigator.
How could I be so harsh? Well, get aload of THIS: After I mentioned that each noodle appeared to be 2 inches long, and I had laboriously placed about 2 feet of noodles in the street gutter that served as my petri dish, she piped up: “Uh, Mr. Monk, I mean, MIKE, just count the noodles in the 2 feet and count the noodles in the can and multiply … ”
“No,” I replied, not kindly. “I can’t take a shortcut when I’m challenging a conglomerate like Campbell’s. This isn’t rocket science, but it demands a scientific approach, and I won’t allow Campbell’s to write me off as another Chicken Little global warmer.”
(By the way, speaking of global warming, how about that snow in Texas this past weekend? An inconvenient snowfall, Mr. Gore?)

Not that I wasn’t tempted, mind you: After I had aligned 12 feet of noodles, my back ached from bending over and my knees nearly bled because I had spurned Sharona’s, uh, Natalie’s, uh, Kate’s advice to put jeans on instead of shorts as I knelt on the asphalt.
(After all, unlike Monk, I’d worn these shorts for two weeks without washing them, and I wasn’t about to shed my uniform for comfort.)
At 24 feet, with my back screaming and knees barking, I nearly relented, but I rejected the temptation, saying, “MM-mmm, good(ness NO).”
At 28 feet of noodling, another thing besides my aching, aging bones started to waver: my faith. It appeared that this was going to be a close contest, that Campbell’s might, indeed, be telling the truth instead of dishing out a bunch of bull, uh, I mean, bouillon.
At 30 feet, I realized I might have to eat some crow, if not noodles.
I dodged a bullet, though, when the final measurement came in: The noodles stretched a mere 31 feet 10 inches!
I was vindicated, and Campbell’s had been exposed as the lying conglomerate it is: and to kids yet, WITH kids. Kids lying to kids for the almighty buck.
I felt a surge of excitement about the opportunity to drag the money-grubbing, international conglomerate into court and, before it was over, I would have owned Campbell’s. I started running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
However, before I had a chance to gloat, and certainly before I had the opportunity to call my attorney (it was Sunday, after all), Monk’s Trudy appeared before me, as if in a vision, and played the role of conscience.
And none other than Monk himself whispered in my ear: “She’s RIGHT, Sherlock. There’s more to the story, as there are in so many cases.”
I needn’t ask WWMD in this case. I knew what I had to do.

Here’s what happened THEN: I looked at my noodle trail, as it stretched nearly to the horizon, fading in the distance like a railroad track’s steel bars joining each other before disappearing on the prairie.
My noodle tracks occasionally veered off center and frequently curled instead of remaining straight. That obviously would affect the measurement. I concluded that, if I had been able to straighten them all out, the final measurement easily would have passed the 32 feet.
So I bend a bloody knee to Campbell’s and acknowledge the truth of its commercial.
Lest you ask why I didn’t count another can, I’ll point out that I had intended to and had even bought two cans. Well, Monk and I are OCD, but we’re not total FOOLS: I was tired of people driving by and wondering what I was doing.
Noodle mystery: solved.
I can’t help but wonder, though, how many chickens died for that can of soup. Or, for that matter, how many tomatoes are in a can of tomato soup. And how many mushrooms get creamed for a can of sauce to cover my pork chops. (Care to compute, Campbell’s?)

P.S.: Obviously, I can’t claim that no noodles were injured in this experiment, but I can state categorically that none was wasted. We enlisted two cockapoos to clean up the mess: Dewey slurped up 28 feet of the noodles (I don’t expect him to deposit a 28-footer, if you know what I mean, but you never know), and his sister, Jazzy, ate the nearly 4 feet remaining. And, of course, I ate the chicken chunks and drank the fowl bouillon.