movie theater popcorn

This was originally written as a message board post.



you're not supposed to preheat an empty kettle, but damned if we didn't preheat some empty kettles in our day. we always popped with canola oil. that's what made it yellow. we used a special salt called flav o cal or some shit. towards the end of the loews days we stopped using that actually and started using some other salt that came in a 50 pound box, like soda syrup. one fifty pound bag of seed would get you approximately 14 big bags of popcorn. and by big bags i mean like... the size of a round R2D2 garbage can. we used a special hybrid corn made by pop secret. what does that mean? hybrid corn? i don't know. i guess it truly is a pop secret. i have a hunch that movie theater popcorn is the most GM'd O out there. my nightmare was always sticking my hand in the bin of seed only to find out that all the seeds had turned into pinchy beetles that would eat my whole hand. i hate bugs.

one time i took a big bag of popcorn to tim delaney's house for some hangout. it was awesome. we had a big bag of popcorn. another time i was closing out a concession popcorn bin and let some guy take a bag of popcorn. jose, the puerto rican security guard who brought me a mango once and told me to fuck goats close to a cliff so they push back, stopped the guy as he tried to leave. i felt bad, but didn't say anything because i didn't want to get in trouble. seeing that mustachioed spic walk back to the stand with a bag of popcorn as the other guy left was sad. how did jose feel? i bet it was hard to negotiate how noble one is supposed to feel about a job well done when the bottom line is a bag of popcorn that was going to get thrown away anyways.

sometimes we would put in more oil to make it extra yellow and delicious. there is a direct correlation between the amount of oil in something and it's deliciousness. i never understood how we made money when a regular popcorn was twice the size of a small and only fifty cents more. doesn't it make more sense to sell less stuff and get more money for it? but i guess popcorn and soda are the same shit. low investments, high returns. making fifty cents more and spending one cent more i guess is more feasible. i guess. there's too much guesswork in this post.

i would love to know how much popcorn i've popped in my lifetime. i want to know how it compares to everyone else that worked there. i'd like to meet the man who has popped the most popcorn in history. but only out of movie theater employees. i don't want to be up against some industrial popcorn magnate who pops for the people at smartfood. there's no craftsmanship involved in that.

the agitator is a piece of the popper that looks like a swastika. it seriously looks like nothing but a swastika. i guess this is the perfect shape for agitating kernels into popping. i think it was actually a backwards swastika, but still. does that mean if i took it out while it was hot and pressed it against the flesh of someone's exposed back it would burn a real one into them? that's another thing i've wondered. maybe i'll get to do that one day.

i am a male, and as part of my masculinity i often dream up strange scenarios in which i get to inflict overly harsh and senseless violence on someone. not even senseless, totally sensible. like... ok what if i get carjacked? what if someone takes my girlfriend hostage? well, if i get carjacked i do what bas rutten said on his youtube, even though i drive stick and am at a decided disadvantage. if my girlfriend gets taken hostage i say "KILL HER" because you don't negotiate with terrorists. that goes for all of you. if any of you get taken hostage as far as i'm concerned you're dead as soon as they touch you, and they are too. if shit ever goes down at TJ's i'm grabbing a bottle of white balsamic vinegar because it's long and has a handle-like top. i have other fantasies involving beating someone down with a can of pet food (dog or cat). did i say fantasies? because i meant to say plans of action. my mind has compensated for the lack of violence\action\life in my life.

anyways... what if we detain some criminal who has wronged us financially or morally and it's up to me to teach him a lesson, all within the sacred walls of loews-cineplex stony brook? no brainer. we handcuff them to a toilet bowl and brand him with the agitator while someone sticks his head in the bowl. it's actually too big to do that. there would be too much rolling around to get a good print. it would be like trying to ink stamp a banana. a banana that has wronged us morally or financially.

we used to pop to get at least one hundred bags of popcorn in the back for every friday. there was little rotation. the popcorn you ate on a sunday would most likely have been popped friday morning. some days we wouldn't even open the popper. cleaning it was a pain in the ass. i won't even get into what went into cleaning it. the bottom got burnt every day, and cleaning off burnt shit is a pain in the ass. we all know this already. it was held together by these weird little bolty things. in many ways it was a medieval device with a complex heating mechanism that would beep when it got too hot. for a little while there was a computer in there that was a piece of shitty garbage. if you ever need a popper, don't get one with a computer. get one with simple switches. four switches.

delivery, agitator, heat, and cleaning

is that true? i think it is

delivery put the oil through. the oil came in boxes like soda syrup. same boxes. same as the salt.
agitator made it turn
heat made it heat up
and cleaning was a switch that wasn't as hot as the other heat thing.
no.... one of the switches turned a fan on for the popcorn bed, a fan that never really worked.
or there was an exhaust switch? something like that.

i'm getting something wrong here.

i remember four switches for something.

when i retire i'm gonna get a job at a movie theater and ask to pop popcorn. i just want to pop popcorn all day. put me in front of a machine. my dream was to put the popcorn machine in the lobby and i go behind a glass case popping popcorn and people see me and i smile. maybe during the dayshifts kids come up to me with empty bags from the concession stand and hold them up to the glass and knock and i smile and fill their bags with popcorn. "oh jeremy the popcorn guy isn't here? that's too bad, we love his delicious golden corn." i would only work days, for children. i would want to be there when the kids are there. i would put the showmanship back into the movie theater business. nowadays it's just a candy store that happens to show movies. but people enjoy that 'behind the scenes' type thing and that's exactly what i would be. they would get to see where their popcorn gets popped. just a little peek under the skirt of the great theater whore.

then i wouldn't have gotten fired. there would have been public outrage at my release from the movie theater. that happened in new jersey when someone with army tattoos got fired. there was public outrage and he got his job back. maybe that could have happened to me. but it didn't. i got the boot. who cared? nobody. who could? i was just some monkey with an apron elbow deep in fryer oil dreaming about handcuffing people to toilets wearing a costume i felt too comfortable in in a building i felt too comfortable in for a company that would do nothing but spit me out like an unpopped kernel unfit for consumption on the basis of visible tattoos contrary to their employment policy that looked eerily like the one the air force had according to octavia, the larger overweight lady who was into LOST who had a couple kids and always ripped tickets and never judged me for leaving girl who worked there and dating another girl who worked there after only a month. octavia loved the letter i had to write explaining why i shouldn't be fired for tattoos. this letter would turn out to be just a way for all of us to out ourselves. it was a good letter. it was me saying i was not an unpopped kernel and was, in fact, totally fit for consumption and would digest nicely and excreted when it was my time. there was never any hope. who would take my case? it would be hard to find a lawyer and give him the task of negotiating how noble he was supposed to feel saving a bag of popcorn who was only going to be thrown away anyway.

now i am a ghost. i have no home. i toil endlessly half a mile away up to my eyes in groceries bereft of my hopes of popping popcorn in the lobby of the movie theater. and what of my dreams to crack someone's skull with a bottle of vinegar? my hopes of turning someone's face into dogfood with a can of dogfood? who's gonna take those away?

who could?