Overheard at work.

It's always fun to listen to folks as they chatter away at work, oblivious to what they're saying or who's listening. And given that we work in a glorified warehouse, at computers set up on folding tables, and that what we're doing is incredibly boring and tedious, matched with an utter lack of challenge, it's no surprise that odd subjects are discussed at length - and often, at excessive length - and that strange and revealing statements are made.

Today, one guy spent a lot of time at the shared computer with internet access, planning his December vacation to Thailand. He plans to travel light, with a small bag containing only underwear and condoms, as he expects to be able to buy anything else he needs - such as shorts and t-shirts - when he gets there. He says that Thailand is on the State Department's list of countries to avoid because of possible danger, and that just makes it all more attractive to him. "I do crazy [stuff]. I went to Belfast when it was really, really bad, just because it was." Yes, this all qualifies as crazy. But to be honest, the whippersnapper isn't old enough to have been in Belfast when it was really dangerous.

Earlier this week, one woman was talking about health food, which is good for you because it's healthy and all and they couldn't call it "health food" if it weren't actually healthy, and she started discussing Omega 3 oils. She proudly noted that kelp is a wonderful source for Omega 3 oils (normally found in fish) because: "Kelp is a fish kind of thing. You know, it's a living thing that lives in the sea." You learn something every day, and that day we learned that the green leafy stuff you find in the ocean and used to call "seaweed" is actually "fish."

She further redeemed herself the next day, when she noted "I'm kind of a pseudo-intellectual." I'd have thought that a pseudo-intellectual was something you either were or were not, and no "kind of" about it.

Still, the best conversation of the week had to be the one about popcorn. Movie-theater popcorn, to be precise, piping hot and complete with salt and melted butter. "And then," it was explained to us, "you open the small package of M&Ms you brought into the theater with you [it being too expensive to buy the M&Ms at the snack bar] and pour them into the popcorn." Apparently the heat of the popcorn heats the chocolate in the M&M, but not enough to cause it to split the shell. And the salt and butter play off against the crunchy nature of the shell and the sweetness of the chocolate. None of the three of us listening to the tale had ever heard of mixing M&Ms with popcorn, and I've had my share of movie-theater popcorn over the years but never with M&Ms. When asked, however, someone at the next bunch of tables said that she did it too.

I've had chocolate-covered popcorn before (usually purchased at a Boy Scout fundraiser), so the concept isn't entirely foreign, I suppose. But chocolate with hot popcorn was a new one to me, and mixing in melted butter just makes me shudder.