All I wanted was a good picture.

Tonight, after the kiddos went to bed, we were going to make popcorn. We bought an air popper this week in preparation for a church event I was helping to plan at which we needed a WHOLE lotta popcorn made in a short amount of time. A fact that basically thrilled me to my tiny toe because I just happen to think regular microwave popcorn is, eh, kinda blah.

I mean, no offense to Orville Reddenbacher and his fancy microwave bags, but you combine those bags with a zillion different microwaves and a zillion different wattages (okay, that’s probably an exaggeration, but it sounds good) and you have a recipe for popcorn disaster. I’m just not really a fan of uber-greasy scorched black puffy corn.

That, AND the fact that with an air popper, you get to put your own butter and salt on the stuff. (Or leave it off, if you’re so inclined. The healthy route and all…) But if I’m going to sit on the couch and have fingers so greasy that they’re incapable of doing a single thing other than shoveling handfuls of popped corn kernels–kernels that will subsequently get stuck between my gums and my teeth and haunt me till bedtime–into my crunching mouth, you’d better believe I want to know what exactly it is making my fingertips so greasy.

The point (what? did someone say this is supposed to have a POINT?) is that both John and I were all excited for our little popcorn extravaganza tonight because we both love and adore fresh, hot, buttery air-popped popcorn.

Okay. So.

Because I, you know, BLOG and all, I thought I’d pull out my handy dandy little picture taker and snap a shot of the whole ordeal. I had a candle on the kitchen island where I was plugging in the popper, the house was so cozy… it would be so… nice. Homey. Bloggerish.

(Insert slighty sarcastic and irony-laced tidbit here about picture-perfection, blogs, false realities and such. I wrote it and the hit the delete button because, well, I want to create my own false reality that perhaps I’m not really as sarcastic as the original tidbit sounded.)

(Ahem. Moving along now.)

Enter Problem #1–the candle on the island had obviously burned out some time earlier in the evening and the wax was now hardened in the candle holder. A new votive was needed.

Problem #2 reared its head when I realized that since I’d already started the popper, I had approximately 2.75 minutes to snap this picture. To capture the mood–candle, popcorn popping away, glowy yellow light of late evening.

So I grabbed a butter knife quickly from the drawer, attempting to pry the hardened wax out of the glass holder before tossing a new votive in there, lighting it, and setting it exactly where it needed to be. Just so.

I pushed the tip of the knife into the side of the peach colored wax and felt it start to give way–good, this will be quick.

Um, apparently the wax was softer than I anticipated because the knife slipped right down the side of the candle holder and…

…glass shattered.

Oops.

There was a HOLE in the bottom of the candle holder. A hole.

But, but, but… my PICTURE. What about my picture?

The popcorn was actually popping by now and flying into the hand-painted, wedding gift popcorn bowl. I had approximately 40 seconds left.

Into the trashcan flew the candle holder, I raced across the living room, grabbed another candle holder (still without any usable wax or wick–I burn a lotta candles around here), wiped up the shards of glass on the kitchen island and looked over to see that it’d be pushing it to even get twenty seconds more of this popping action.

Forget the candle.

Take the crazy picture.

Look at the mess I’ve now created.

And do a self-directed eye roll at the phenomenon of blog pictures.

A crooked camera, overflowing popcorn bowl, and the glimmer of broken glass on the counter. I got my picture.

This is real life… whatcha see is whatcha get. And I think I like it better that way.

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