JUST WONDERING, PART DEUX: Bill answers our query in Just Wondering about what flavor the primordial soup was by using an ancient conundrum, even though I am sure Bill knows that conundrums should only be used once and only if they are reasonably new. The primordial soup, Bill says, was chicken noodle, thereby proving which came first, the chicken, not the egg. However satisfactory this answer may be to Democratic presidential hopefuls, intelligent porn stars, and admirers of the Iowa crocus, it does not, of course, answer the cosmological question, why the noodle, and what is its role, if any, in the forming of the postmodern American consciousness? St. Augustine of Hippo states in The City of God that the noodle, like space and time, is an attribute of the divinely created universe, a theory that St. Thomas Aquinas uses in Summa Theologica as one of the proofs of the existence of fettucini alfredo. William of Occam, on the other hand, suggests that this theory is only so much wishful thinking, that fettucini alfredo is a useless complication in the explanation of natural phenomena, and that Aquinas should stop being such a damn glutton and settle for spaghetti with clam sauce.

Today, quantum mechanics suggest that the noodle is, in fact, the string of modern string theory, the underlying force behind all matter and energy in the universe, although quantum mechanics have been known to exaggerate after a few beers, as witnessed by recent claims by some quantum mechanics that they have fixed the life cycle, when in fact anyone can see for themselves that they have put the seat on wrong and that the tires are way too small. If, however, an egg noodle is the string at the heart of creation, then the conundrum Bill challenges reasserts itself with greater force. Therefore, the chicken, the egg, the noodle, and the primordial soup; which came first…and why?