Attempting To Solve A Popcorn Problem

 The popcorn problem is a mathematical problem that takes place mostly at theatres, but can also happen at just about any place that entertains you and offers popcorn. I've never bought popcorn at a concert or professional sporting event, but I have seen it for sale at those events and can imagine that the problem happens there as well. For the sake of explaining this problem, I'll use the theatre as my example. The problem is that all too often you run out of popcorn before the entertainment has even begun. On some occasions you might manage to limit you popcorn intake during the time you're waiting for the event or movie to start, and maybe you'll have popcorn available during the first 15 minutes of so. 

This is a strange situation because I always associate popcorn with watching movies, but maybe I'm actually associating popcorn with waiting for movies to start. Maybe once the movie starts I might actually have no interest in popcorn at all. I wouldn't really know because I've always finished my popcorn before the movie has started.

Popcorn is an odd snack. You might be thinking to yourself, "those buckets of popcorn at theatres are huge, that's more than enough". The fact that they call the container for popcorn a bucket supports that theory. The thing is, most popcorn buckets don't actually contain much solid food mass. I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about having to carry a bucket of popcorn before because it's too heavy. It's a bit of an illusion, as most of what you're buying is actually air, and these air filled popped kernels have lots of air between them as they don't really nestle together very well.

I should also point out that I tend to order the medium, or maybe large if I'm sharing popcorn when I go to the movies. I pretty much just go along with whatever "combo" or deal the theatre is trying to sell that seems appropriate for my party size (a single if I'm alone and a two person combo if I'm with Allison). I am aware that many theatres also offer insanely large buckets of popcorn as well. I'd just always assumed that these buckets were meant for families and since I don't have kids, I've never bought one... That is until now.

On a recent trip to see the movie Inside Out 2, Allison and I jokingly suggested that we pick up the largest bucket of popcorn available at this theatre. As you might be able to see from the picture, it's about 10 inches tall with a diameter of about 12 inches. I feel like this sudden urge to get a giant bucket of popcorn came about because of our last theatre going experience where we bought the "large" box of popcorn at another theatre and it contained maybe 50 kernels of popcorn, and that's it. Maybe we were over compensating, but the price wasn't too bad and we figured it might be an interesting experiment.

We got this behemoth and couldn't stop laughing the whole time. We were actually watching this movie in Thailand, and I couldn't help but imagine how the locals would see the "westerners" with their giant bucket of popcorn since there's a generalization that westerners eat large portions (spoilers, we do). We waited for the theatre to be cleaned out, and once it was, we wandered inside to our seats. In this theatre they offer special seating for couples that consist of two large, comfy chairs squished together like a couch. We generally opt for this and it worked out well as our popcorn needed a large place to sit and between us on this couch worked perfectly.

We also decided that we would eat the popcorn as usual. So no holding back and waiting for the movie to start. We sat down and watched a good 20 to 30 minutes of trailers happily munching away on our popcorn. I would occasionally feel around the bucket to see how far we'd gotten. By the time the movie started it felt like we'd eaten about 1 and a half inches into the bucket. After about the first 45 minutes of the movie I assumed that we must have been near the end, but we weren't even halfway through.

By about the 1 hour mark I started to not want to eat popcorn anymore, and only continued to eat out of habit or some drive to finish this bucket. About 20 minutes after that I was pretty much tapped out. I nibbled here and there, but I just couldn't eat any more popcorn. I felt like Allison was in the same boat as me.

The photo above is how far we managed to get into the bucket. By this point I could touch the bottom with my finger, but just barely. I would say we had a good 2 or 3 inches left. I took away a few lessons from doing this. First and foremost, as much as you think you'd like to eat popcorn throughout an entire movie (or concert or sporting event), I don't think that's true. Secondly, if you get a giant bucket of popcorn, make sure to get the giant drink to go with it. I noticed my consumption went way down once my drink was done.

We tried to eat more popcorn when we got back to our hotel, but frankly the idea made us a little sick. There's a great expression is show business "leave them wanting more". The expression suggests that it's better for your audience to not get enough entertainment rather than over doing it. I feel like this works with popcorn too. It's better to not get enough popcorn than have too much. When I don't have enough popcorn I just look forward to the next time I'm planning to go to a movie. If I get too much I just leave with a tummy ache and sore, dry lips.