308. Consequences

“Boy are we going to make some dough.”

Oh no, there was a fat chef going through my wife’s pantry, his chef’s hat waving in the morning light. Of course it wasn’t a chef, but my resident alien C.W. pretending to be one.

“You’re going to be paste if she catches you in her groceries.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll cut Mrs. Big Dope in on the deal and she’ll have all the money she wants to keep more animals here.”

This made me shudder. “And how, exactly, are we … you … going to make all this money?”

“Soup,” he said.

“Soup?”

“Soup.”

My head began to spin. “How will you make money with soup?”

“Selling it,” he said, then stopped. “Well, not exactly selling it outright, but for what your species calls an intense feeling of deep affection offering.”

“A what?”

“You know, the thing TV preachers use to get rich.”

“You’re not talking about a ‘love offering’ are you?”

“Isn’t that exactly what I just said?”

“Let’s move on,” I said. “So how will you make money with soup? You know nothing about making soup.”

“That’s the beauty of it.”

“How so?

“You don’t have to. See, the big obstacle is overcoming the laws mandating that you have to know what you are doing to make food if you claim you’re doing it for your religion.”

“Oh my god.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Your species has a law that you don’t have to follow a law that offends your religion.”

“Well, not exactly …,” I began.

“In a recent case in your state, they stopped the health folks from acting. That opens the door for us to serve what I’m calling RFRA Soup, after the so-called ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act.’ Here’s the recipe.” He handed me a page filled with typing. It read:

            RFRA SOUP

Fill a normal bathtub will water from the hot faucet.

Add four cans of Campbell’s Potato Soup
Dice and add one onion
Salt to taste
Package and serve for a three-dollar love offering per serving
After the family has bathed, fill the tub and repeat.

I gasped. “Surely you aren’t serious.”

“Please don’t offend my religion.”

“You don’t have a religion.”

“I do, the same as the others. Making money. Have you ever seen a poor preacher on TV?”

I ignored him. “Three dollars?”

“Yes, we’ll say it’s one for the Father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy …”

“Stop it,” I said. “You’ve gone completely mad.”

We don't need no stinkin' laws.
Now that's a money-making concept. - C.W.

“I didn’t write the law,” he said. “I simply intend to flourish by it. By the way, all profits are tax-free.”

“But,” I said, “the law wasn’t intended to make people rich.”

“What was it intended for, pray tell? And notice my use of the word ‘pray.’ I’m getting into the spirit of things.”

“The law was intended to, uh, well … satisfy the belief by some that there is a higher law than those made by humans.”

“But,” he said, and I sensed a shift in his demeanor from chef to theologian, “it came pass that man’s law itself fell victim to a higher mandate, a much higher law, and one recognized as all-powerful by all gods of the eternal universe.”

“And that law was?”

He smiled and took back his recipe. “The Law of Unintended Consequences. It’s going to make us rich.”

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