The persistent stench in the house reminds me of the time I shutdown the Digital Crossing Building downtown. Yes, I evacuated the Digital Crossing building. See, I was working late and needed a snack but I had been up for a couple of days (wrote an ad server in 4 days complete with campaign management and ..well, that doesn’t matter) so after putting my popcorn in the microwave I went back to programming. After the smoke alarms went off and the building alarms started screaming with the flashing lights saying to "get out" I remembered my popcorn. Then a nice fireman came to walk through the building and make sure everyone else working late knew that I was hungry and needed a snack.
Microwave popcorn left in the microwave beyond the 2 second pop limit (don’t judge it by minutes!) starts to burn. Left too long it mergers into a black block and produces a thick gray smoke. Given enough time I am certain it would erupt into flame. All that aside, burnt popcorn stinks to high heaven!
Microwave popcorn should come with a warning label "if you should be on Ritalin but aren’t, do not use this product!"
My wife said I wasn’t clear. Yesterday, I wanted a snack and put some microwave popcorn in the oven. It said to pop from 1.5 minutes to 4 minutes so I maxed it at 4 knowing that we typically are done in 2. Then an incident happened and I rushed out of the kitchen to forget the popcorn. Those 2 extra minutes almost started a fire! And today the house still reeks and the microwave is going to require extra cleaning. So, I guess I can’t be taught.