Mindful Living: Homemade Popcorn and the Y2K Threat

One evening last week it was so quiet that I could hear the catch of my cat’s claws as he padded across the carpet. Little tiny tick tacks. It was in this supercharged quiet that I realized that I hadn’t had homemade popcorn, the kind you actually make in a pot, in nearly five years. Back in college I indulged in popcorn dinners fairly regularly, due in equal parts to lack of funds, a fondness for salt, and a genuine belief in the fiber properties of popped corn.

I had just bought my first set of pots and pans, the kind of set that costs about $15 for the whole shebang. One of the set was the perfect popcorn pot, just large enough for a big bowl just for me, and just light enough to toss around and get the kernels jitterbugging around in the oil. I rarely washed it because I figured that the cooking was a kind of self-cleaning property. Besides, one of my roomies insisted that since carbon was the basis of all life, it was not only OK, but possibly healthful to eat remnants of black stuff stuck on from previous pops. That pot lasted a solid 10 years, at which time the whole thing disintegrated in one big poof. I couldn’t complain. In the meantime I had switched teams to the microwave variety, which while tasty, still lacks character.

So I went over to the grocery store and picked up another cheap pot, although this time it was $15 for just that pot. It’s bigger, but still has the lightness needed for proper shaking. With a nod to due reverence, I poured canola oil and popcorn kernels in, and waited for the big moment. It came with a sizzle and spit, kernels dancing wildly in a cha-cha competition. With salt and a diet coke, the circle was complete.

I think about these things because being able to pop corn in a pot is something I think we’ll all need to be able to do when times get tough. I’m thinking of the Y2K thing which may put us at a disadvantage for a while. I’m no doomdayer, but considering how much of our lives are run by computer, it would be unlikely that our routines would be unaffected. Each food item in the grocery store, like popcorn, has gone through a hundred steps from the corn ranch to my new popcorn pot. All those steps require electricity or a computer or transportation. If one step fails, my bowl may not get fully popped.

My guess is that we may be inconvenienced for a few weeks or a month, maybe without heat or garbage pickup or power. So, I plan to be prepared for these possibilities. I’ll have some food put by, and a radio, and medical supplies. More importantly, we all need to make contact with our neighbors, because they will become our families in the case of a technological blip.

It also highlights our dependency on technology. After all, if I was dependent on a microwave for my popcorn, a power outage might put me into a state of kernel withdrawal. A flame and a pot are easier to come by. Just a few years back, music was a mostly manual exercise. Record players required electricity, but not a computer chip to get us dancing. It was a function of a needle running over the actual bumps of a record that made sounds. With compact disk players, there is no way to make music without that technological component.

Perhaps this will be your opportunity to pull the guitars out of the attic and hum a few tunes. Perhaps this will be your opportunity to connect with your neighbors and solve whatever problems come up. Perhaps this will be your opportunity to live by your faith, not by your fear. We must fight the panic that makes our neighbors and friends, even now, stock up on firearms and build hideaways in the woods. If we were all to escape to Camel’s Hump, there will be no community for us to return to.

In the coming months the media will enjoin us to pack away water and rice and wrenches and bandaids. Remember that this technological “crisis” is a chance to be present for your community. At the moment when a zillion millennium parties ring into the year 2000, we will have the choice to stay calm and oriented toward each other, or to give in to fear. It is responsible to be ready with extra popcorn stashed in the pantry, but more importantly, we need to be prepared for the panic of situations like this, as well as for your neighbors and friends that will need your help to survive.

When you start stocking up on stuff, remember to also stock up on compassion and kindness, because those are the things that will make the next millennium a place that we all want to be in together.

Copyright February, 1999