Burnt popcorn. I know that your nose is wrinkled up because the last memory you had with burnt popcorn is not a good one. The hazy smoke enters through your nostrils and floods your lungs as you try not to gag. Your whole kitchen is filled with smoke and it quickly spreads throughout the entire house. Last week this exact thing happened to me, but at school. 

One of my dear friends brought a very nutritious and healthy breakfast to school:popcorn. He threw it in the microwave, right side up, and pressed the popcorn button, which we soon found out was not very reliable. Not long after, the microwave started to produce a nasty-smelling smoke that took up the entirety of the lunchroom (commons) area. 

The commons is a very busy place that has students and teachers passing through all day long. It was quite entertaining watching everyone that entered the room put their hand over their nose and say, “what is that smell?” The janitor came rushing towards us, asking what had happened. My friend’s face turned red like a tomato as he explained with embarrassment. The janitor laughed and quickly began searching for rags to wipe down the microwave. The lunch ladies came around the corner asking if everything was okay. Once we got over the smell, everyone thought the experience was very comical and we all laughed. 

The topic was spreading around the whole school just as fast as the gruesome smell was. The small room that the microwave was in was filled with fog, so we quickly retrieved fans to try and get the smoke to exit the area. I was surprised that the fire alarms were not triggered. If they had been set off, that would have sent the entire school outside on a very chilly day. The smell of the burnt popcorn stuck around for about three periods out of the eight-period school day. I went to all of my classes feeling like the whole school smelled like burnt popcorn, but I eventually realized that I was the one that was giving off that scent. The smell had gotten on my clothes like it does when you are sitting around a fire on a warm summer evening. All day I walked around smelling like the not-so-wonderful fragrance that the popcorn had produced that morning. So I guess I would say that the moral of the story is, to keep your eye on your popcorn so you don’t have to experience that awful smell.