That Time My Feet Smelled Like Popcorn

“Do my feet smell like popcorn?” I recognized this ask was clearly above and beyond my assistant’s job description and might even be some as yet unnamed form of harassment but I needed to know.

It was a little after 8:30 in the morning and the two of us sat at our respective desks in our small office, shielded from students in the library by a single door with anti-school shooter contact paper now clouding the once clear windows in it, and some glass windows next to the door large enough to entirely negate the anti-school shooter contact paper. We were both eating breakfast.

Carol was working on a favored treat, a reheated egg concoction more hot sauce than egg. It unnerved me every time. Like others who had confided in me, I smelled the alcohol under the hot sauce breath and was concerned.

I grazed slowly on an oatmeal square bar dripped with a peanut butter sauce. That I was smelling popcorn despite not seeing or tasting popcorn anywhere in the vicinity was also of concern.

Carol was already used to me remarking that her Cheerios and milk smelled like chicken, confirmed by a select few students I would reel into the office to validate my sniffer. Whether or not they were being polite, intimidated by my earnestness or position as librarian I cannot say. But the relief I felt when one agreed with me was palpable.

Carol said, “No,” and laughed so I did what all good librarians do when faced with an unanswered question. I turned to Google.

There’s a whole category of items that and circumstances during which things that should not smell like popcorn smell like popcorn. They include animal feces, urine, dog’s feet, diabetes, pregnancy, diets too high in protein. Scientifically proven. But none of that applied to me. There is even an Urban Dictionary entry for hot buttered popcorn feet but mine were definitely butterless.

A few scans later and there I found it, “Imagining a popcorn smell with onset of migraine.” Sure enough, my neck had been aching, slowly turning to stone, my jaw was cracking and I had started yawning incessantly. The popcorn feet conundrum had prevented me from noticing the accumulation of telltale impending migraine signs. At least now I knew it wasn’t a stroke. It was cool but also horrifying.

I now knew that my brain was fully capable of lying to me and even when I knew it wasn’t true, my feet smelled like popcorn.