this morning i broke the seal on a recently purchased box of Microwave Popcorn (light w/ no butter, please). to my great dismay, the box only contained TWO bags of white, fluffly delight. for a moment i thought that perhaps i had mistakenly purchased one of those gourmet popcorns that only come two per package, but no. this was a three-seater and only two spots were spoken for.

now how do you suppose a three-bag box of popcorn arrived on my grocer's shelf with only two bags in it? is that the result of faulty machinery at the popcorn packing factory? or did a disgruntled popcorn packer slip the third bag into his pocket when the line manager wasn't watching? or maybe it's a massive popcorn scam by which Orville R. shorts his customers one bag per hundred boxes?

go with me on this one. let's say each box of popcorn (3bags/box) cost a nice, round $3.00. that's approx $1.00 per bag. so, for every 1000 boxes O.R. sells, he stashes away a cool $10.00. do you realize the profit potentials on that kind of gig? this could be huge. i'll have to crunch some numbers and get back to you on this one. in the mean time, i guess i'll have to be content with two bags....