where's the salt?!?!

*with apologies to robb, for still being the same

it's 1:33 am. i can't sleep. the delectable smell of fresh, hot, buttery popcorn is wafting through my apartment and torturing me.
one of my neighbours apparently has a thing for aromatic&salty midnight snacks. if it keeps up, i'll find myself knocking on their door in my pjs with eyes as big as saucers (going round and round), holding out a bowl.
please sir, may i have a little more?
this is the third night in a row. i'm hoping they only bought a box of three packages, otherwise, i'm in for another agonizing night tomorrow.
i'll be lying in bed, trying (somewhat successfully) to get comfortable and (less successfully) to forget about the mound of assignments weighing me down. then, as the first shades of sleep begin to close in on me ... the golden aroma will hover on the air. at first, it will just be a hint of thought of popcorn. what's that? sleep will ask, and fly out the door. you know i brook no rivals, she'll shrug, and disappear.
i'll bury my head under the pillows, and try to smell the laundry soap, the scent of patrick's aftershave on the pillowcase ...
but the hot buttery goodness will not be so easily deterred.
i'll count sheep. i'll try to name a place starting with every letter of the alphabet. i'll close my eyes and think of rose gardens in the sunshine. i'll try to recite all the verses i've got memorized. but it will fail! it will fail!
i'll forget everything and find myself sitting upright, smiling dreamily, breathing in the tantalizing scent of popcorn.
desperate, i'll launch myself out of bed and rummage through the cupboard. but my rational self from daylight hours has forseen this midnight scrounging, and there is nothing aromatic or salty to be found. herbal tea, stray packages of jello, and pancake mix will stare blandly back at me.
i'll turn to the fridge. yogurt, smug in its saltless state, will sit benignly on the shelf. pickles will whisper, we're good enough. but they won't be. toast will suggest, try me with butter. but it's all hollow, compared with the poppylicious butteriffic finger-licking saltiness of popcorn.
i'll drift mournfully to my blog, to console myself with the slight comfort of shared misery. then i'll go back to bed, and lie mournfully awake, until the fragrance of popcorn settles for the night.