Popcorn: Not Just For Eating

Popcorn is not just for eating.

It's not just for cushioning things to mail, either.

Or for stringing along Christmas Tree branches.

What else can you do with it?

Play a game!

When our boys were still living at home, we'd sometimes make popcorn and play "What's that piece?" You play it by picking up a single piece of popcorn and saying what it looks like before eating it.

What's this one?

From my POV, it's an animal paw!

Okay, popcorn piece number two. What do you see?

I see a fish swimming from left to right! (Do you see that? Or something else?)

Now what's this?

A flower! (These are all subject to individual interpretation, so there are no right or wrong answers here. And if you turn the picture upside down, you just might see something else...like a lobster clinging to a wooden ceiling.)

Okay, I see two things in this one. What do you see?

It could be a jellyfish with floaty tentacles bunched beneath it, or a duck's head! (See the little yellow beak on the left?)
See how much fun this is?

I didn't write down what I was thinking when I deemed these popcorn kernels worthy of photographing, so what does this one make you think of?

I don't know either.

I'm gonna say a fat baby chick with a teeny head and its beak open upward hoping for food! I'm sure it wants to eat a piece of popcorn.

(Perhaps that makes it a cannibal...that adds even more adventure!)

*Ahem* 
Okay, so here's another one for you.

Poptopus! (Haha! A popcorn/octopus.)

Now the next two are the same piece of popcorn from two different angles so you can (maybe) see what I saw.

What is it?

It's a Pharaoh's hat front view...

...and side view!

You're not getting tired of this, are you? Because this one also has two interpretations.

(Do you see two things?)

How about a goose flying from left to right with its wings down, OR

an index finger pointing to the right?

Okay, what about this one?

A rhi-pop-arous! I see a rhinoceros-type shape running from right to left, top view.

(Now I get to eat it!)

Don't go! Last one! Do you see what I see?

It's a sexy swimming suit!

Popcorn can be so much more fun than just eating it by the handful. If you're particularly hungry, you could play the game between handfuls of popcorn.

When you play, it's your rules, because I won't be there...unless I smell your popcorn and come on over, because I love the stuff.

Do you like popcorn?

Microwaved?

Air popped?

Stove top?

Or do you hate it no matter how entertaining it is because the kernels stick in your teeth?

Running Cloud

When I saw this cloud, I knew immediately what it looked like, but my teenager, Michael, said it wasn't what I said it was. 

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE TO YOU?

I see a frog running across the sky, taking long strides.

Is that what you got?

Do you like finding shapes in clouds?

When my boys were younger, we used to make a bowl of popcorn, then pick up one kernel at a time and say what it looked like before eating it. (Why should the clouds have all the fun?)

Funny Food

Have you ever heard of a mountain of potatoes? (What's up with the sky-high potato pile? Wasn't there a bigger bowl in the back of the cupboard somewhere?)

How about an Easter Egg hunt? (The problem is, it wasn't Easter, and I was in no mood for hunting. I'd thought the chickens were duds, roosters in drag, until we found a stash of eggs in their secret hiding place. Of course the lovely nest boxes with straw weren't good enough.) Unsure of how old each egg was, we ended up feeding them to the dog. She approved of every single one.

Then there's the popcorn game. It's where you pick up a single kernel of popcorn and decide what it looks like before eating. Very entertaining, and low calorie, too, since it takes so long to eat a bowl of popcorn this way!

And we can't forget the happy hotcakes! (Except that the bear seems to be feeling more neutral. While gazing at this picture, I must ask myself, is it truly appetizing to chew on what appear to be bear's lips?)

Some of these foods may tempt you, some may turn off your appetite. The simple truth is that people like to eat different things, and people like to read different things. That's why we have different authors and styles of writing, so that the whole world can be happy.

What do you like to write? What do you like to read?