A few years back I went to the cinema with a friend and we decided to split a large bag of popcorn, only they weren't kidding when they said 'large' because by the time we got out we hadn't even finished half of it. Luckily, when we went to sit on the benches outside a nearby bookstore to wait for my friend's brother to pick us up, a man and his girlfriend were having a very loud disagreement in the parking lot.

This troper kept a bag of unpopped popcorn handy for just such an occasion. It got used once when a friend and the boyfriend of said friend got in a fight.

Do you eat unpopped popcorn?

I speculate that he waits until the fight starts, goes into the other room, pops the popcorn, then returns to watch the fireworks.

This is exactly what this troper did every time when a LoveDodecahedron reached critical mass and shit hit the fan. Sometimes, ''literally'' with popcorn. High school buffets have their use after all... also, this was the best way to avoid the fallout.

Considering that this trope even exists and that people might well see it as a "not caring"/"finding it humorous" signal, HOW was it a way to avoid the fallout?

This troper worked for a disreputable tax-prep service operating out of a shopping mall and was fired, presumably for having ethics (he wouldn't sell the company's scam products to innocent, hardworking people). On April 16th he went back to the mall, bag of popcorn in hand, leaned up against a support post, and watched the teardown crew take the temporary kiosk down.

This troper does this whenever anything interesting is going on, miming eating a bucket of popcorn/pack of chips. Two of his characters tend to do the same, though one has a tendency to use powerful magic for such mundane things as actually having the popcorn/chips for it.

This troper once did this (it might have been chips, or a sandwich, though...it's been a long time) when I happened to be home watching a live CNN report with helicopter coverage of a house a man who'd shot a sheriff's deputy had fled into...and that accidentally caught on fire when they fired tear gas into it. Like watching a yule log. No one came out. I'll leave it up to others what ''alignment'' of evil that qualifies me for.

The first post this troper made on the first message board he ever visited was in an already established topic. It looked something like this: #QUOTE#Hi. I'm new here. This place any good? *Looks around.* Ooh, a fight! *Sits down with popcorn.* Don't mind me.

This troper once encountered a heated argument in his high school cafeteria. People were watching in awe as the argument turned into a fight. This troper simply sat down with his bag of popcorn and slushie and started eating, cheering whenever someone got a good hit in. Soon, everyne else began cheering and eating their lunches. Then, when one of the fighters fell down, a student ran up to the one who was still standing and held up his arm like a champion boxer. They both got suspended, but it was awesome.

I had a party at my house where two people got into a fight. I pulled up a folding chair, got a soda, then ate Laffy Taffy. Best fight ever.

The entire population of this troper's dorm—with two exceptions—did this ''multiple times''. The {{Backstory}}? One of the [=RAs=] and his girlfriend were, ah, enjoying themselves quite a bit, frequently and VERY loudly. Eventually, everbody else living in the building got wise to this, and would keep popcorn and other snacks, as well as folding chairs and beanbag chairs, ready to be employed at a moment's notice. The funniest moment was when the entertainers emerged from the room once and everyone present applauded.

this troper's character in EveOnline will, upon finding out about a conflict between two factions he doesn't care about (e.g. two pirate factions), offer to take bets on the outcome.

SCPFoundation chat board. Bright vs. Kondraki. Full stop. (I had to throw up the metaphorical popcorn, though, when Bright posted a fugly [sic] RuleThirtyFour of SCP-808 x SCP-105. Hellooooo, kickban.)

On a side note, SCP-682 has a Twitter. I shit you not. Though half the posts are random snippets of Japanese, and one of them was "&# 31169;&# 12364;&# 12371;&# 12371;&# 12395;&# 12290;" ("I am here.") spammed a few dozen times.

I remember a school theatre version of ''Antigone'' with two Narrators on stage passing Popcorn between each other. It had a rather disturbing effect.

I have done this. I will warn you, more volatile people will not take kindly to your mockery of their SeriousBusiness in this fashion.

A friend of this troper's got into a fight with his girlfriend at the cinema. Popcorn had already been purchased. You could not actually have asked for a more perfect time for it to occur.

This troper had a roommate in college who was utterly shameless with his girlfriend, really into heavy petting while I was still in the room despite several requests not to. One time, I microwaved some popcorn, turned my chair around, and started eating it while watching them. "Don't mind me. Continue." Last time they did it while I was in the room.

ThisTroper doesn't comment much on a certain forum, but minor arguments are so frequent that ''* eats popcorn* '' has become something of a CatchPhrase for me. I find it makes it easier to not get involved myself, and now that it's become other familiar people have come to recognise it as a sign that things are getting a bit out of hand, and simmer down. At one point, I'd been away from a particular thread for a week, and an epic shitstorm had boiled over. It was pretty much over by the time I checked back in, so the only thing left to do was to hang a lampshade on my absence: #QUOTE#''*enters with multiple cardboard buckets* '' #QUOTE#''O HAI! Sorry I'm late, had a bit of trouble keeping up. Never mind, plenty of popcorn for everyone. What'd I miss?'' #QUOTE#''*looks around at the charred remains of the thread* '' #QUOTE#''Holy pants! What the photon happened here?!'' #QUOTE#''*finds a seat amid the destruction, eats popcorn* ''

This troper, who used to work in a restaurant, did this once with a soda while the head chef was blowing up at one of the cooks (although drinking the soda was mostly just an excuse to stay in the kitchen and watch).

I'm eating some right now!

This troper watched some furious arguments about the voice cast and newer games of Sonic series while eating some popcorn. That turned out to be quite a soap opera at the end where hundreds were involved.

This troper's family was eating dinner when his brother got a text about a faceless baby on TV. Everyone promptly moved dinner to the living room so we can see such a sight as we eat.

This troper and his cousin usually have this reaction when a friend of both argues with his girlfriend

This troper was in the park and saw the tension within a LoveTriangle coming to a climax (not ''that'' way). Needless to say, he bought a hot dog from a vendor, a cold glass of lemonade from another, and enjoyed the show.

Some background information first. While Singapore is remarkably tough on piracy, there are some places that are well-known among locals for selling pirated software. Alright. This troper's father is part of an anti-piracy task force. Since he can't be seen buying pirated stuff, this troper tends to run his errands, and pick up his software at the same time. He also gets warnings from his father to avoid certain areas on certain days in case this troper gets caught in the action. One of his favorite things to do is to go there on days with raids, buy a drink and sit near the entrance, watching the parade of shopkeepers. The operations usually pop back up after a week or so anyway.

This troper works at a grocery store, and is always on the lookout for "Nothing Fights". Just so he can say "I was there!"

This Troper was in his school cafeteria next to a microwave. A fight between a couple ensued. A second later, the Microwave gave us popcorn.

At a recent Dungeons and Dragons Encounters game, My group and I were fighting a bunch of Kobolds in a ramshackle building. I (being a Fighter) chased three of the Kobolds around the back of said building. When my teammates finished fighting the other Kobolds, they came to check on me to discover that me and the three Kobolds were playing cards, drinking mead and roasting newts over a campfire. Man, that was one hell of a Diplomacy check.

Really, really, ''really, really, REALLY'' {{NSFW}} example here. For added fun, check the posts below the image.

whenever this troper [=RPs=] with a friend and something interesting happens (usually two or more [=OCs=] fighting), her next action will inevitably be "*grabs popcorn*"

Never had a chance to do this in real life, sadly, but I once wrote, for a screenwriting class, a short script about a MadScientist and her cheerful, yet dim-witted neighbor who'd come over to borrow something. Basically, the scientist was getting in contact with the U.N. on a giant video screen so she could carry out her latest evil plot to extort money from the nations of the world by threatening to sap the water supply of every major city on Earth. Meanwhile, her neighbor keeps bumbling around her lab until, eventually, he releases her mutated velociraptor and inadvertently feeds it some AppliedPhlebotinum that makes it grow several times its size. It breaks through the lab ceiling and walls and runs off to rampage outside of its master's control, destroying her dehydrating machine in the process. The U.N.'s response to these events? Half of them break out bags of popcorn from seemingly nowhere (One notable exception being the Japanese ambassador, who mutters a line about the velociraptor being a "copycat").

My friend/lab partner popped some popcorn in Biology class and ate some once while we were wating for the bell to ring so we could go home. Another Biology and popcorn example happened some days ago when I was walking from World History to Biology, and another friend had popcorn that he gave to me.

This troper is a member of the forum that has had several cases of forum members hooking up with each other, and (especially since they're also often long-distnace relationships) will be rather "open" about their relationships on the boards. So whenever a couple starts teasing each other online, this troper indicates (and often does in reality) that he is breaking out the popcorn, and whenever a significant event occurs (new relationship, marriage proposal, etc), will make references to having to increase the size of his (already sizable) popcorn budget.

This was part of this Troper's reaction to finding out Osama bin Laden was dead. Waiting for the official announcement, and wanting a bit of a snack, he decided to enjoy some "Victory Popcorn".

Not exactly popcorn, but this troper once ate a bag of chips while watching his older step-brother and siter in law have another fight, wearing a bored expression the entire time.

When my school's drama club performed The Greek Mythology Olympiaganza, the play called for an entire long scene of the entire cast dying. Thanks to the open-ended nature of the script, the guy who played Achilles was allowed to bring in a bag of white cheddar popcorn from the school cafeteria and eat it while watching everyone die, right in the middle of the performance. Before he took his foam sword and slit his ankle, of course, being a death scene.

In this troper's school production of Urinetown, this happened. One of the minor characters (the main character's father) dies in the second scene. He then appears as a ghost briefly in a couple more scenes. During the Act One Finale, where the main character starts a revolution, was one of those scenes. The director decided to have him sitting on a high platform eating popcorn and surrounded by pizza boxes. He also was allowed to add in a couple of extra lines for himself which changed every performance--he had to make sure to tell us what they would be backstage before he did it every night so we would know it was coming and not burst out laughing right in the middle of the scene. As you can guess, this guy was a bit of a {{Large Ham}}.

This troper was with his high school's gaming club at the midnight showing of Transformers 3, and we were sitting around waiting for the movie to start. The teacher who hosts it was telling some old D&D stories, about half of us present had heard them and half of us hadn't. We had just gotten popcorn, and he just started telling the unanimously decided "best" story. I commented "this is good story." and one of the guys who hadn't heard it before had started on his popcorn. At the end of the story, the guy with the popcorn who hadn't heard it before commented "You're right, that was pretty good. I'm almost out of popcorn."