Friday, March 02, 2007

I was That Guy today. Oh, the shame.

This morning at around 10:30, I really wanted a salty snack. You know, something crunchy, salty, something to go with the 2 liters of water that I drink at work every day. I know that the craving for a salty snack stems directly from the same reason that I'm currently sporting Bodacious Tatas, the phenomenon in which my cup size increases by one letter and then decreases again over a 28 day span. You get the picture, and Hulk gets to enjoy the phenomenon for a week every month.

Anyhow, salty snack. Hulk and I haven't been to the grocery store in a week, which is really unusual for us, but the weather turned crappy again and neither of us felt like going to the store last night. So I couldn't bring my normal lowfat string cheese with me, and I didn't want to go buy something. So hmm, what to do. Aha! I said to myself. Someone at my work has kindly left a few packages of microwave popcorn underneath our dungeon microwave, and I thought to mself that I'd pop the corn and set the bag out for everyone to share, so I wouldn't be consuming the whole thing alone. The popping of the corn commenced, and I stood next to the microwave, sucking up cancer rays and endangering my future hypothetical children, listening intently so that I could stop the machine when the corn was finished and before the burninating commenced. Deftly, I popped open the door as the popping slowed to 2 seconds between pops. With great glee, and drooling a little, I held the bag away from my face and opened diagonally, as one should, to keep the steam from blowing in my face.

Alas, the wily microwave and the bag of popcorn conspired to deny my salty treat. Somehow, despite my oncological sacrifice, the butter scorched, so the smell of burnt popcorn emerged with the hot steam. And to my dismay, I couldn't even eat the stuff because there was no fluffly white goodness, only a disappointingly small amount of split kernals swimming in blackened yellowish oil. Ugh.

I disposed of the wretched bag of offense and scorch in the ladies' room trash, but unfortunately, as we all know, the smell of burnt popcorn somehow manages to seep into everything immediately upon bag opening. The stench has filled the entire basement, and lingers even now, nearly 6 hours later. Luckily, this being Friday, there were only a few coworkers here to mock my shame. And though this is my first popcorn offense, since I've never before even made popcorn at work, it will be my last, as I will swear off ever popping corn here again. The misery and distress to my coworkers is too great a price to pay for a PMS-induced salty snack attack.

2 comments:

-qir said...

It wasn't your fault, the popcorn was dried out. What?

Well let's see, popcorn stored forever, in warm place, in a dry environment. The internal water that converts to the steam, that powers the pop, that makes the salty snack, that water it does sort of leak out of the little kernals. This is one reason why popcorn is one of those grains that is actually good to store in the refrigerotter because it dries out more slowly there.

So, in short, totally not your fault, but next time, take the bag out to the outside dumpster in the snow. The smell dissipates faster out there.

EEK! said...

Oh, ew, I can smell it from here!