Popcorn FAIL

Hi folks! This guest post comes from one of the sweetest bloggers I've had the fortune to get to know, Gemma of Closets are for Clothes (aka. the blogger formerly known as Libby).

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Great. One month in to my new job and already I’ve got an incident under my belt that I’m not going to live down anytime soon.

I burnt the popcorn. As in smoked it. As in smoke literally ballooning up in greyish clouds when I opened the microwave door and wafting out the kitchenette doors. As is my eyes were watering and I was coughing.

NOT. COOL. I wanted to melt into the ground, I was so embarrassed.

I mean, it’s not like it’s never been done before, right?! It happens all the time! I mean, it’s practically a fact of life I tell you. But it never fails that no matter how common a boo-boo it is…everyone and their mother will comment about it (my internal retorts to each comment in parentheses):

“WHAT is that SMELL?” (Do I really have to tell you?)

“WHO burned popcorn?” (It was meee ok? IT WAS ME!)

“GAWD can someone open a DOOR or something?” (I don’t even KNOW, I’ve been here a month, if there is one please, do the honours and open it)

“You KNOW that smell is gonna stick to everything in here for, like, a WEEK” (Yeah, thanks for rubbing it in)

“Stop bringing popcorn here, ok?” (UMMM, pretty sure the dozen other times I’ve brought it and popped it perfectly, you were ALL salivating and more than happy to take some.)

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So yeah, I get it. I’m sure I would have reacted in a similar way if someone else had burned their afternoon snack. I’m extremely embarrassed, but, as I relive it in writing this post, I’m a little indignant as well. Seriously, it was no worse than a “I was just sitting around the campfire” smell. But I apologized. I cleaned the microwave. And now, all we need to do is give time some time and the smell will be gone on its own. I’m crossing my fingers such a trivial incident won’t void the headway I’ve made in terms of working to earn the respect of these people I have to work with. Maybe it’s silly of me, but the worry is really there. So as not to dwell on that, here are some of the ‘positives’ of my popcorn FAIL:

• I have the day off tomorrow so I don’t have to deal with people still harping about it until they’ve hopefully cooled off and the smell has hopefully dissipated by Monday.
• I’m super grateful to the guys who (in my mind, anyway) seemed to get that I was already embarrassed beyond measure and who played the incident off with jokes of their own (i.e. when asked “how can you stand to go IN [the smoky kitchen]?”, responding “because I’m a MAN.”; or when people were exclaiming WHAT IS THAT SMELL, saying “Oh that? It was me,” rather than singling me out)
• My boss had already left when in the incident happened, and may still be absent tomorrow. This is the best case scenario so that he doesn’t smell the strong odour tomorrow. If he IS in…well, at least I’m not, HOWEVER, this also means I won’t be there to be on rumour patrol about me ‘intentionally’ setting the timer to 21:00 minutes…(bugger.)
• At least the popcorn didn’t catch fire/blow up/set off any alarms with the smoke. THAT would have been disastrous.

All in all, I’ve learned my lesson.

Notes to self:

• TRIPLE-CHECK that the timer on the microwave says 2:10 and not 21:00 minutes before you turn your back on it. Better yet, don’t turn your back on it.
• When a tiny voice at the back of your head wonders “Shouldn’t the timer have gone off by now?”, LISTEN TO IT. Do not (I repeat, do NOT) wait until the acrid smell starts to permeate the air. It will be too late.

This truly is the first time this has ever happened to me to this extreme extent when popping popcorn. I think I’m going to stop bringing it to work, or get my own microwave or something. I’ve still got half a giant Costco box to go…