Donut musings

On weekend mornings, either Saturday or Sunday, I like to get up early and go get donuts. It's a treat. When I wake up early enough for Krispy Kreme, I drive over, park, and go inside. I could drive through, but if you go in, they give you a free, warm glazed. Then you can save your other donuts for later.

The past two or three times, I've asked for one or two glazed donuts and a filled one. I would just order one custard-filled donut, but I'd feel too odd. Even buying three donuts is weird in Krispy Kreme. The least anybody ever gets is half a dozen, but almost everybody is going in for a dozen glazed, or a dozen glazed and a dozen assorted, or six dozen. Your single donut consumers are rare, it seems. Once when I drove through and asked for one strawberry shortcake donut, the guy at the window just gave it to me, no charge. "It's just one donut," he waved away the dollar I held out. At Shipley's, where I also go sometimes, it's not strange at all to order an apple fritter and a cinnamon twist. Shipley's is a chain, but it feels more like a mom-and-pop. The shop I go to is old; the paint on the sign is faded, the inside is bare and dim, and they close before noon every day. I try to put a tip in the styrofoam tip cup.

I'm hard-pressed to eat four donuts in a week; I just want that one treat on one day. But I can manage it. This morning when I went in to Krispy Kreme, and the woman who waited on me said, "You get almost the same thing every time!" I was secretly thrilled; I'm almost a regular!