It's popcorn! How fucking dumb are you?

The BBQ Pit
61

In the (slight) defense of popcorn burners.

One fine day I decided to make myself a bag of popcorn. I carefully removed the paper bag from the plastic bag, unfolded it and studiously placed it correct side up in the microwave.

Aha! There’s a button labeled “popcorn” on the control panel. I press it and the number 1.4 appears on the display. But being aware of the devious nature of electrical appliances I suspect that there may be more to it than it seems. I press the popcorn button again and the number changes to 1.2. A third press renders .8. Ah, it dawns upon my keen intellect that you must select the correct weight of the bag. I press the popcorn button until the correct weight is displayed and then with a dramatic flourish press the start button, secure in the knowledge that I have successfully grocked the intricacies of microwaving popcorn.

I return to my desk.

Three minutes later… What is that horrid stench??

Everyone: Who burned the popcorn!?

Me: I did, but I used the popcorn button on the microwave.

Everyone: Everyone knows that cooks popcorn way too long.

Me: Everyone neglected to inform me of that particularly relevent bit of information.

Everyone: Now you know. Get rid of it!

I retrieved my bag of smelly carbon from the break room and deposit it in the trash can in the restroom way down the hall.

Lesson learned. Buttons lie!

62

Guess you won’t be doin’ shit now, huh Tard?

63

I had* a co-worker that would scramble eggs in the microwave, which is conveniently located directly outside my office door so that I have the (dis)pleasure of smelling everyone’s food.

Now, I like eggs…when I’m eating them. If I’m not about to eat them, I don’t like the smell. But if that wasn’t bad enough, when she was done scrambling, she mixed in KETCHUP! Every time I saw her open the coat closet and get the egg out of her coat pocket (a full hour and a half after getting to work), I closed my door and kept it closed for at least a half hour. Ugh!

*Thankfully she was shitcanned due to anger management issues, so no more eggchup for me to smell.

64

Many years ago, my girlfriend and I went to stay in her uncle’s holiday cottage on the south-east coast of Ireland for a long weekend. It was very generous of him to loan it to us for no charge.

So we arrived into the cottage late on Friday night after driving down from Dublin, to be greeted with this unutterable… unbelievable… smell-it-and-retch… stench. We couldn’t locate the source, but no way were we going to be able to stay there until we did. But we had nowhere else to stay. So with a towel over my face I staggered round the house, until my eyes started streaming more than normal in the kitchen. And as I approached the microwave I was nearly asphyxiated.

See, the previous occupant of the cottage was the owner’s son - my girlfriend’s cousin, a lad in his early twenties. He liked fishing, and had gone to the beach and brought in a mackerel or something.

After catching his fish, he’d obviously though to himself “how can I cook this bastard?” and thrown it in the microwave. A while of zapping, and there’s no way it resembled anything edible, so being a young lad in his early twenties, he simply left it and fucked off back home to Dublin.

We found it three months later.

The microwave was full of a swarm of nasty little blackflies, happily living in the ecosystem created by the fish. I managed to lift the plate it out of the microwave and throw it outside along with its rotting contents, then vacuum the rest of the flies out - the ones that hadn’t escaped into the cottage, which were to plague us for the rest of the weekend - then we put a bowl of soapy water into the microwave and boiled it through for half an hour. The whole cottage still stank. I can recall the smell vividly to this day.

65

This is not a microwave story, it’s a freezer story. A guy died and my new landlord had the property returned to him, because he had financed the purchase for the man. I was with him and he was showing me what he still owned in the area. He stopped at the house and said he had to check out the house, because he’d just gotten it back. I’m in the front of the house, and he’s in the back. I can smell a horrible stench and leave almost retching. He opened a chest freezer and it had sat a couple months in summer not running. It was originally full of meat I guess. I didn’t actually go back in the house again to look. He decided to lock the freezer shut and have it hauled to the dump. He did that later, because he wasn’t about to walk back into the house full of that smell either.

66

Holy crap, Santo Rugger, those pics are just crazy!

We have a couple people in my department who are quite guilty of putting popcorn in the nuker and burning it badly. A friend of mine who’s the lovliest, sweetest and usually calmest person ever went postal on one of them not long ago and said “I swear that by God if you ever burn your popcorn again and I have to smell it, I’m going to string you up by your short hairs and shove smouldering iron ingots in your butthole!!”

67

This sounds like a candidate for “squishing” an extra few coats into the closet, inadvertently compressing the pocket of her coat.

68

Oh, she just would’ve laid another one.

69

I don’t know about fish being cooked in a microwave being borderline; I’ve never smelled fish cooked in a microwave that wasn’t full on incredibly smelly. I was a culprit myself once; I was re-heating some leftover salt-and-pepper squid at work. I apologized profusely to everyone who had to smell it and never did it again.

70

Sadly, with me it’s the sound. I have very acute hearing. The noise of a rustling cellophane bag drives me up the wall! I’ve walked over to people and grabbed their bag, poured the chips onto a plate, take the empty bag and walked away. It’s the only method that works.

Think John Belushi in Animal house with the guitar playing guy.

71

This morning, I was rummaging the freezer for something to bring for lunch today. I brought out and had even packed a Whole Foods “Bistro” lunch - Mandarin orange glazed salmon with fixings, and then I remembered this thread. Bistro salmon went back in the freezer and I went out for a salad instead.

72

New version:

A new receptionist decided to nuke some popcorn. Our employer has a definite bias against this practice, but the new girl decided to try it anyway, as the boss hadn’t shown up yet.

While making an eleven minute personal call, she forgot that the microwave was still cooking her snack. Folks are wandering around, trying to determine where the burning smell is coming from.

The microwave is finally discovered. Smoke is pouring out the back, much to the concern of the 5 to 6 folks standing around, none of whom are doing anything.

I decided to rouse the slugs to action. “You might want to unplug it.”

Slug A bravely unplugs the appliance, then slowly backs up. “You might want to take it outside, because the popcorn’s still burning.”

Sure enough, I was right. Slugs B and C risk their lives to carry the microwave outside, and set it right in front of the front door.

Which was still open because of the smoke.

At this point, an upper-level management type came in, sized up the situation, and procured a large floor fan, which somewhat saved the day.

How do I know that burnt microwave popcorn still continues to cook when the power’s turned off?

Older version:

I used to work for a guy that was the cheapest person on Earth. He was so tight that he squeaked when he walked. He bought a used microwave from a second hand store. The timer was non-operational (it would still cook food when time was up).

With the miser out of town, my co-worker and myself decided to make some popcorn. We both had breather masks on, as well as hearing protection. We both forgot about the popcorn until the fire department showed up. Although we had the back door to the shop open, enough smoke was generated to obscure the whole parking lot, which resulted in a passerby calling 911.

They took the funky oven outside, but it still took AFFF foam to put what remained of the bag out.

73

I think where popcorn-burners go wrong is when they wander off. Don’t know what it is about the microwave that makes people think it’s okay to do so, but you’re cooking something, for gosh sakes. Don’t leave it unattended. Either that or buy pre-popped popcorn.

My office has two microwaves. I am thankful my office and the kitchen are on opposite ends of the building.

74

As an experiment, I once placed a large potatoe in a commercial microwave. I set the temp to “high” and the time for 60 minutes.

The thick, black, column of smoke and 6 inch tongue of flame nessesitated curtailing the project after 10 minutes.

I learned to respect microwave ovens that day.

75

Heck, it’s good to stay there even if your microwave has a fairly good popcorn setting. My microwave has a popcorn setting that’s nearly perfect, but I still stay there while it’s popping because about one time in twenty it will start burning a little.

I think that sometimes happens because the popcorn is more likely to burn if it isn’t as fresh - when I was getting to the bottom of a case of microwave popcorn I’d bought about eight months ago, the popcorn was more likely to burn on the regular setting, and there were more unpopped kernels.

76

You must really hate microwave popcorn if you wear a breather mask to make it.

77

So does my wife, although she will eat non-burned. She also lets it sit and will eat it days later.

78

Wow, is she the best receptionist EVER or what? :smiley:

79

A couple of months ago, a co-worker decided to cook up a snack of taco puffs in the microwave. Unfortunately, instead of using the microwave time, she put in the conventional oven time. After about three minutes, someone noticed smoke coming from the microwave, and stopped it. Instead of taco puffs, the woman now had lovely miniature charcoal briquettes. The stench stuck around for several hours, and everyone seemed to avoid the breakroom for some strange reason. :smiley: I wound up throwing the briquettes, er, puffs into the garbage compactor.

80

Deal. I don’t drink or like the smell of coffee either. :slight_smile: