Burning Popcorn

Some microwaves just can't make popcorn. A new rule I have adopted....don't ever assume that a "Popcorn" button on a microwave means that it will successfully pop a bag of Popcorn. Oh boy, did I ever learn that today. The sad thing is that a bag of burned popcorn seemed to set off a catastrophic wave of ridiculousness...ridiculous attitudes, judgments, pettiness, drama...the whole rainbow of immaturity. Omg...lol.

Yep.  I burned a darn bag of popcorn at the office today two seconds before running in to teach.  I may have let out a few silent expletives...blew it off (figuratively and literally)...gave the bag to the kind maintenance person who happened to be walking the hall...and ran into my classroom.  Apparently, though, the smell and smoke of burned popcorn loomed strongly enough to cause an uproar....and by the time I walked out of class there was a cross ready in my office and a couple of people prepared to nail me up. 

Now...please understand, I am a pretty considerate person.  I care...and am certainly culpable of caring so much that I crucify myself.  But....really...this is popcorn.  For today...for some reason today...I decided that I was done with other people's ridiculousness.  Because, honestly, you could throw some stink bombs in my office and I'd likely laugh...and if the stink bombs landed there by someone's accident, I'd likely laugh harder.  But furious..? Seriously? My gosh.

Oh...this was ridiculous, I can't exaggerate that more...because they had blown it up enough.  I felt bad...I apologized...I sent an email to all of us, apologizing some more, and...yep...I thought that was good enough. Then, I get called into my boss' office.  YES...really...seriously...get called into my boss' office.

" What happened?", she asked.
" I burned a bag of POPCORN!...that's it"

And....finally, (getting to the good part of this story)...I decided I was done....done in the sense that I was not going to "sorry" my way through this part of my life anymore.

I do apologize a lot.  Some settings more than others.  In my work location, because they are their own little tight-knit group with few of us outsiders on the edges, I tend to walk in and out doing my job and ending it there.  I apologize my way through the snickering...smile...take their "superiority"...and that's it.

But today...guys...today I was tired of it.  I didn't yell.  I didn't argue.  I didn't even confront the most ridiculous of the group.  It wasn't worth it.  BUT, when my friends came by to pick on me and laugh, I laughed.  And when my boss called me in, I laughed again.  I looked her straight in the eyes, and smiled...and joked about it until she smiled.

And for once in that place...I felt like a REAL person.