JPopupMenu JMenuItem's are not firing their actions

I have a JPopupMenu that is not part of a JMenuBar, it is brought up
next to a button in the JFrame when pushed. Using a MouseListener, the
button show()s the JPopupMenu when the button is pressed, and the
JPopupMenu disappears when the button is released. The mouse can be
dragged to the menu items and they do highlight correctly. However,
when the mouse is released on the items, they do not fire their
commands.

An alternative method of making the menu stay open when clicked so that
the use can completely press and release on one of the JMenuItems also
did not work.

in pieces,

this is the creation code of the button that shows the popup menu.
headerPanel[i].add(new ResultEditMenu(i,this));

where ResultEditMenu extends JButton and implements MouseListener

//here is my constructor:
public ResultEditMenu(int i,ActionListener al) {
super(">"); // the button text
this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(17,17));
this.setMargin(new Insets(0,0,0,0));
this.addMouseListener(this); // the button responds to pressing and
releasing by showing the popup menu
index = i;
externalListener = al; // this is the actionListener that should
respond to the menu items
menu = new JPopupMenu();
menu.add(Win.makeMenuItem("Transfer",externalListener,"RESULTWND_TRANSFER_"
+ index));
menu.add(Win.makeMenuItem("Edit",externalListener,"RESULTWND_EDIT_" +
index));
menu.add(Win.makeMenuItem("Delete",externalListener,"RESULTWND_DELETE_"
+ index));
}

//Win.makeMenuItem is a (static) shortcut method I wrote that sets the
name, the actionlistener, and the actioncommand of the menu item
respectively then returns it for adding to the menu

//here are two the methods for ResultEditMenu to implement
MouseListener
public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
menu.show(this,this.getWidth(),-2); // the popup menu is shown right
next to this button
this.setText(" "); // makes it more obvious which button was pressed
}
public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) {
menu.setVisible(false);
this.setText(">"); //restore original label
}

//this is the externalListener actionPerformed() method that should
respond to the menu items
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
System.out.println(e.getActionCommand()); // does not print anything
when the menu items are clicked
}

I hope I've provided enough information. Thank you for reading.
~Jeff