Whose popcorn bag is this anyway?

It's mine. A twenty-something snacking on cheap popcorn bag innards in place of meals blogging in order to use this useless English major from undergrad. Well, correction. It's not exactly a useless major. The major does make you always know when someone's modifier is dangling or what "metaphysical" means, but it's just so gosh darn broad (insert Sarah Palin accent there) most of us have no idea what to do with it. Some of us go into education, of course--stick with what you know, you know? But most of us only picked English in the first place because we had no idea what to do with our lives, and, heck, it sure sounded better than "Undecided" to your parents. Thus entered the ideal English major: "So broad you can do anything!" But, in actuality, more like: "So broad your career path will be as unclear as it was when you got in to this university!"

The thing about us English majors is we just like so much stuff we don't know what to do with ourselves. Check out the average English major's reaction at a local book fair: "Cool! A book about moon phases and its effect on the creative mind?! Ooo! Ooo! Look at this one, Inventions of the 13th century! Ah! Recipes for Indian cuisine! A Complete Shakespeare Anthology! Home Storage Ideas! HOW DO THEY KNOW ME SO WELL...?" You just may be an English major if you find yourself running out of shelf space, yes, even after you got rid of those awesome roaring lion bookends, in order to fit all of those "intellectual investments." In other words, English majors are generally in the same phylum as "pack-rats."

Or, "popcorn-fiends." There's nothing like a few years in college studying George Herbert to Florence Nightingale to Carl Sandburg to Maya Angelou to get you acclimated to late night popcorn popping. Ah, those blessed kernels of golden goodness. So many times have they saved me from eating my index cards for ENG 202: Obsolete Word Origins of the American Lexicon, Section I Need Caffeine at this 8am, or, perhaps, ENG 397: What Is This Class Again? Section My Professor Has a Booger in His Nose Every Single Day and I Am 100% Distracted.

Of course, I'm being partially facetious; remember, we English majors take interest in the most ridiculous topics. Well, everything except doing any numerical computations. We can read about fractals, but you better sure as hell not make us do one!

So here I am. Using my faithful friends, words, to create my precious kernels of survival for someone else. English major or math major, graduate or drop-out, those who prefer their popcorn kettle or those of the movie theatre butter persuasion--all of you out there, here's a popcorn bag for you.