Popcorn Hands 03/17/08

Yesterday, at work I decided I wanted some microwave popcorn, so I went to the vending machine to buy some, and dad-gum-it, it was the last one and it got stuck...and not regular-style vending machine stuck, but stuck between the little holder thingy and the wall of the vending machine. Whatever. No amount of shaking was going to free this thing, so I just went back to my desk. I told the very manly (but surprisingly, straight) woman that I work with that my popcorn got stuck, and so we went out together to wrestle it out of the vending machine, but still, it wasn’t moving. Now I REALLY wanted popcorn, because I couldn’t have it.

As we’re walking back inside, she says to me "Well, there’s the popcorn sitting on top of the fridge...I don’t know whose it is, but it’s been here since I’ve started" (she’s been here about six months). I joked with her that it probably belonged to one of the anal-retentive accountants upstairs, you know the kind, they get mad when you park in their parking spot, even though there’s no assigned parking. I didn’t want to take an accountants popcorn, because they probably count each bag left at the end of the day (it was a box of ten mini-bag, kettle corn, 100 calorie style thingies) but my co-worker just laughed and told me while I was at it, to make her some too.

So, I removed two bags of popcorn-bear in mind, MINI bags of popcorn-and I put one in the microwave, and I pushed the popcorn button. Now, every other microwave I’ve ever used, when you press the popcorn button, that means it has some sensor to detect when the popcorn is done, so you don’t burn it, and it takes the guesswork out. Well, not this archaic piece of shit. It just popped and popped for three minutes, then burned for the additional 30 seconds, so that when I opened the microwave door, it’s just smelled like burning, almost to the point of fire, so I quickly wrapped up the scorched little bag in some paper towels and ran outside and dumped it in the dumpster. We had to spend the rest of the afternoon airing out the office, the snatchy accountant upstairs could smell my thievery, and I think the smell gave everyone headaches.

You know what the best/worst/best part is? MY right hand is now burned this dark yellowish-black color, on the top of my palm, and it smells like burnt popcorn. I showered, washed with antibacterial soap and hot hot water, dipped it in purell, put lotion on it, and it still smells like popcorn.

Moral of the story- don’t steal accountant’s popcorn.