50 Uses For Endless Popcorn


I am a fan of popcorn. And it's just as well, because after entering a competition held by Metcalfe's Skinny on Twitter following a promo event they held at my uni, I now have a year's supply of the debatably vegetabley snack.


For someone who never wins draws, this was (and still is) wildly exciting. I say never, but that's not entirely true. I do, in fact, have a handful of very proud winnings to my name. It all started when fiveish-year-old me was randomly selected to win a Roobarb & Custard DVD from something I entered in a magazine (most likely Girl Talk, the absolute fave (remember that?! And Mizz!!!)). Then many moons ago around the age of seven, I won a '[spend hours and hours and HOURS to] Find the Sunflowers' competition at Gardening Scotland, where the newfound fame and glory were more than enough for me, with a book token as an absolute bonus. Most recently, at the ripe old age of 12, I won 'Next Top Monster' of Moshi Monsters (oh moshi u so punny) which was, at the time, really quite exciting (believe it or not). Since then, though, my prize-winning luck seemed to have dwindled. Until now! Lucky me.

Delivery numero uno of troi brought four months worth of their Cinnamon Sweet flavour into my life, and while it is very delicious and greatly enjoyed by both myself and everyone else in my family who have all been assisting in making a dent in the seemingly endless supply, there comes a point where you start to wonder what other things it might be useful for.

I haven't thought about this before sitting down now to write it, so let's just see what ideas present themselves... Here goes.

1. Eat it.
2. Throw it at people you dislike, but not that much (it's hardly going to hurt, might just provide mild annoyance).
3. Throw it at people you like, but not that much (you're giving them yummy popcorn, but also making them work for it (think seals/dolphins/penguins/other nice aquatic chums catching fish)).
4. Make edible jewellery (like a healthier version of those teeth-chipping sweetie necklaces/bracelets of yesteryear).
5. Lay a Hansel & Gretel style trail showing your route to a life-sized gingerbread house (sans evil witch please).
6. Use it to tempt friendly woodland creatures into your home.
7. Balance buckets of it on top of doors to fall on people as a more winter-temperature-friendly alternative to water.
8. Crunch it as loudly as you can in a library. Also in very silent lifts in extremely tall buildings.
9. Leave packs of it in odd places as a #RandomActOfKindness.
10. Fill boxes with is as an edible (and thus vastly superior) version of styrofoam packaging pellets. Perfect for Christmas!
11. Stick it to a wall in your house, taking the feature wall trend to a whole new level. Time-consuming, but worth it. Also useful if you forget to buy food and don't mind a slightly stale and wallpapery aftertaste.
12. Drop it, and discover gravity. Your apples will be preoccupied playing their part in a baked camembert recipe, coming soon *wink wink*.
13. Make a ball-pit with popcorn instead of balls. A popcorn swimming pool.
14. Give it to your family/friends/strangers on the street.
15. Thread it onto string and use it as a decorative Christmas garland.
16. Throw handfuls of it over people and yell "Surprise snow!" Global warming can't take a white Christmas away from us if we have access to popcorn. Ha.
17. Bake it into rocky road.
18. Use it instead of straw in a lucky dip (or whatever it is they usually use, I have no idea).
19. Put it in the end of shoes that are too big, to make them fit.
20. Stuff it into shoes that are too small so they stretch, to make them fit too.
21. Deadlift loads and loads of it, to make yourself fit (although you'll need a lot. It's on the light side. Maybe a year's supply would do...).
22. Sneak it into the cinema and save yourself approximately £1,000,000.
23. Stuff it into your clothes for that Santa physique that is so in demand this season.
24. Make a bed out of it. Noisy and not necessarily hugely comfortable, but great in a squish.
25. Fashion it into a haute couture outfit. If Lady Gaga can wear a dress made out of meat, you can wear something made entirely from popcorn. At least yours won't require cooking when you feel peckish.
26. DIY your own Christmas crackers and fill them with popcorn. It's not like we don't have enough food on Christmas Day already, right?
27. Arrange it into a carefully thought out message for your housemate/significant other/random visitor to find when they arrive home. (Warning: this won't be quite as effective if you have a dog. Or a sense of smell and a slight appreciation of popcorn).
28. Build a house out of it. (If you do this one, consider contacting the two less intelligent of the Three Little Pigs - you'd probably get along pretty well).
29. Take it to a wedding to use as confetti.
30. Put it in pretty bowls and arrange them tastefully around your abode because you're a) too cool for pot pourri and b) just so #artsy.
31. Rub it on yourself. Exfoliating is important.
32. Shake it, and create a position for yourself in the percussion section of an alternative orchestra.
33. Use it as snow on 3D handmade Christmas cards.
34. Build an igloo for your local penguin sanctuary. (Yes, penguins do live in igloos. They do. Hush now.)
35. Have a popcorn fight - like a pillow fight but with popcorn as hundreds of teeny tiny slightly scratchy pillows.
36. Leave bowls of it out for Rudolph and his comrades for some well-deserved sustenance on Christmas Eve.
37. Host a popcorn party (meaning just invite people round and gobble popcorn with other people as a change from gobbling it by yourself).
38. Beat any existing popcorn-related world records.
39. Get creative and establish some new popcorn-related world records that are as yet unrecorded/unheld.
40. Do the chubby/fluffy bunny challenge with it. (You'll get through a lot this way, as my sister and I found out when we actually tried this and found it to be a total flop because popcorn dissolves so you have to constantly top it up with more, which is really just eating a lot of popcorn at once with the odd 'chubby bunny' thrown in there, when you think about it...)
41. Practice throwing it for yourself and catching it in your mouth, so that next time someone chucks a grape/tangerine segment/smallish piece of anything edible your way, you can impress everyone with your unrivalled skill.
42. Learn to juggle. (The popcorn pieces will fall really slowly so you'll have plenty of time to catch them. They're also really hard to throw, but we can just ignore that bit.)
43. Crush handfuls of it whenever you're stressed or feel like exerting a very minuscule amount of power over some puffy almost-vegetables.
44. Ponder whether they really do count as a vegetable, then engage in animated debate on the topic with anyone you can find who can be bothered to discuss such a hugely fascinating subject.
45. Stuff the Christmas Day turkey with it because you are a non-conformist and #edgy.
46. Measure how big your hands are by how many pieces of popcorn you can hold at once. Make it a competition with your nearest and dearest, sure to create feuds just before Christmas, which is exactly what everyone needs.
47. Sprinkle the remnants of your popcorn-crushing endeavours over anything that might possibly need a little bit of crunch.
48. Scatter it on the carpets of someone you really don't like. (It'll be there for yonks, especially if they have the misfortune to tread on it. Almost as disastrous as glitter. Hoovering is futile.)
49. Mindlessly chomp through it as you are doing other things - before you know it, you'll have chowed down three bags and written a solid eight words or so of an essay. Great going, keep it up!
50. Write a blog post about it.

As you can see, I am more than prepared for when the next instalments on my year's supply arrive. If you ever find yourself suddenly in possession of much, much popcorn - you know what to do. You're welcome. (P.S. Thanks, Metcalfe's Skinny - here's to my never-ending entering of competitions and giveaways. Long may it continue (probably in vain).)

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