Popcorn...

She dug into the bag of popcorn searching for those perfect almost popped kernels of popcorn. Or would it be barely popped? Either way, those were her favorite. Just the right amount of crunch without being too much. She had tried to figure out how to pop just those types of kernels. But you couldn't really plan for a whole pan of barely popped corn. It was always going to be either a few slightly popped and whole lot of unpopped kernels or a lot of fully popped kernels with a small handful of slightly popped. 

No matter how you tried it was always going to be only a small handful of the ones she really liked the most. 

Maybe that's why she liked them the most. Because you were always only going to get a few. Never enough to get tired of, always just few enough to make you think you were getting something special. A surprise gift. 

Except she never left them for a surprise. She always dug through the bag searching them out. Sometimes she dumped the whole bag onto a cookie sheet so she could sort them out and get all of them. Leaving the fully popped ones for someone else. Or just tossing them out if she was the only one around. Why save them after she had the ones she really wanted?

She had always been like that. When there were toys in cereal boxes she always shoved her hand in and dug around to get it right away, and then left the cereal for her siblings. She didn't even really like cereal. Just the toy. She ate the top of the cupcake and left the base.  The base was usually kind of crumbling and bland. Once you didn't have frosting the cake part wasn't that great. She only ate the edges of brownies and the center of the cinnamon roll. Someone else could have the rest. Why bother with the lesser things when you knew what you liked? When you knew what you wanted?

She was not a "journey" person. She was all about the destination. 

Give me the good stuff. And give it to me right away. 

Maybe that's why she liked the barely popped kernels. Because they didn't wait around either. Only cooked long enough to barely pop. 

Or maybe she was spoiled and little selfish.

Or maybe she was a little shallow. 

Or maybe she just knew what she liked and everyone else was too busy trying to figure out what they should like, or what was polite to like. 

She already knew. 

And it was the barely popped kernels. The ones that had just started to crack open. The ones with some bite to them. The ones that you only got a small handful of every time you made popcorn. 

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This is one of those process pieces. I know she is going to be in a story at some point. I don't know her story yet. I don't know her name yet. But I already know how she eats snacks. Sometimes that's what happens. I get an idea for a person in my head. A snippet of them. And then I spend some time waiting for them to tell me some more. What is the story?

Odds are when she shows up you won't recognize her. Unless part of her story is around her snack choices. But it might not be. But this is part of who she is. Part of what makes her tick. And so I have her in my head now. Rummaging around a bag of microwave popcorn looking for the little barely popped kernels. 

And I'll wait for the rest. Because she has something to tell me. I just don't know what it is yet.