It’s been a long day, and it’s not going by any quicker. You step into the Student Activities Center (SAC) and immediately want to step back outside.

You are surrounded from every direction by hungry students, and you start to feel claustrophobic. Left with what seems like less than one square inch of breathing space, you start feeling dizzy. But wait—what are those gleaming yellow kernels sitting pretty in the wicker basket on the counter? These delectable popcorn kernels are what make every trip the SAC worthwhile.

Students trample in and out of the SAC frequently. Whether it’s to eat lunch, buy a parking permit or dance ticket or wait in line to buy lunch, the SAC is always bustling with activity. Simple acts of kindness from the SAC, like giving out free granola bars, lemonade, chocolates or other goodies, make the student body feel loved by the school administration and the SAC, along with making the center a much brighter place. I can’t lie, though: the popcorn will always reign as the number one on my list.

When taking a handful of popcorn, the time it takes to wait for change after buying a Gunn sweatshirt goes by extremely quickly. Instead of being annoyed or letting impatience get the best of you, taking a grab at the popcorn basket puts a smile on your face. It could even get a conversation going—with the popcorn at hand, I myself talked to an SAC volunteer for a good three minutes—something I’d be too shy to do normally.

Glucose is a key element in attention span. Though I am definitely not advertising popcorn as a healthy food to eat lots of every day, it does contain this helpful sugar. Grabbing a bit of this delicious snack before heading to math class can make copying those notes much less strenuous and much more enjoyable, and make refraining from chatting with that cute lab partner much easier.

Many will argue that students sharing one basket of popcorn greatly promotes the spread of infection and innumerable germs. Well—that’s why there’s always Purell stationed directly next to the basket! Wipe those hands down before they enter the basket and immediately after as well—problem solved.

Life is stressful, school is worse. It’s time for everyone to chill out, wake up, and smell the popcorn—little things can go a long way sometimes.