Help! It's Snowing .... Popcorn?

Last night the kids wanted popcorn. I stopped buying microwave popcorn awhile ago because:
1. Our new microwave burns microwave popcorn (even if you hover over the microwave and push the stop button the second the popping slows down).
2. Child #3 delights in licking the butter of the inside of the bag when it is empty (which is disgusting all by itself), and leaving the licked remnants all over the kitchen and/ or family room. (House rule #2 - no eating in any area besides the kitchen/dining room. House rule #3 - Throw your garbage away when you are done eating. Yep! That's working out well)!
3. It is cheaper to buy popcorn in bulk and pop your own.
4. I am trying to serve healthier options to replace junk food (which, by the way, is not being well received here in Barrettpotamia), and I can monitor the butter to salt to popcorn ratio better with air popped corn.
Imagine my chagrin, when I pulled the air popper out of the lazy Susan to discover that someone had lost the the little butter cup (see picture above) that plugs the large hole in the top of the lid! I knew that if I popped corn with it in this condition, we would have quite a snow(popcorn) storm in our kitchen. At this point there was much wailing from the troops, thinking of something to cover the hole that wouldn't melt or explode from the heat; I grabbed a ceramic mug that one of the kids received for Christmas ( child #4 is very attached to his Santa Claus mug, and keeps digging it out of the thrift store box! Drat, foiled again!). The mug actually fit just right in the hole, and the heat from the popper melted the butter I had placed in the mug just before I started popping popcorn (a little experiment). Success, the troops were placated (for now)! Quick thinking has bought me some time! Now I can scour the thrift stores to find a replacement for the missing portion of the popcorn popper. I guess, desperation truly is the mother of invention!
P.S. AT WHAT POINT DID MY LIFE BECOME A COMEDY ACT?