Chad,

>>I'm pretty sure you can call the event handler directly by simply passing a reference to the object (the MenuItem in this case) and the proper event hander (new EventHandler(menu_Click))

Do you mean like this?

this.ReportsPad.Popup(this.ReportsPad, new EventArgs());

If so, I've tried that, but it won't compile. This is the build error:
The event 'System.Windows.Forms.MenuItem.Popup' can only appear on the left hand side of += or -=

Thanks,
Mike