Taking a bite out of heaven

Oh, that sweet, round comfort! Sugary zero. Perfect unbroken O. The tie that binds.

I had to circle the parking lot twice because I'd entered the exit instead of the entrance. That's how exhausted I was, and maybe he saw me from the drive-in window, my little doughnut of a car going round and round the building. When I finally reached the speaker to place my order, he said, "Be with you in a minute." I didn't mind the wait. It gave me a chance to close my eyes for a few moments and rest.

The voice finally scratched through. "What can I get for you, honey?"

"Two glazed," I said. "That's all."

You've been where I was—idling at the drive—in window, or sitting at the counter, or visiting the break room at work where the green and white box with the red signature logo is tilted open and a half dozen are calling your name. You've downed six at a time. Go ahead and admit it: you've consumed the entire dozen. A couple of bites, melting in your mouth, and the first one is gone. The second, the third. Why, they aren't even filling. Never mind that each one has a zillion calories and the nutritional value is in the negative column. Never mind that when you're finished, you won't be hungry for the next three meals.

Sometimes there is just nothing that will soothe your pain like Krispy Kreme.

This was that night for me. It was the end of five unsuccessful hours of back-to-school shopping. The shopping bag in my car contained nothing but a couple of items, bought desperately so I could go home, things that I'd return two days later. My feet ached. My shoulder hurt from carrying a heavy purse for five hours. I hadn't eaten since noon and it was now eight o'clock. I'd missed supper at home, and I still had thirty minutes on the interstate before calling it a night. It'd be dark when I pulled in the driveway.

"No charge," the "honey" man at the window said when I held out two dollar bills for my $1.47 tab. He handed me the bag and waved his hand away. "It's on me."

"But..." I protested. He shook his head, smiled.

"Thank you," I said, smiled in return. A few minutes later, on the road toward home, I said to my husband, "I've had an absolutely horrible day. But the sweetest man just gave me some free doughnuts."

"Sounds to me like you need it," he said.

Later it occurred to me that my need for Krispy Kreme after a day of shopping was a family tradition. In fact, two traditions were at play on this weary Friday.

Before school starts, you are "supposed to" go back-to-school shopping for "a new outfit." That was my mother talking, and to make sure we learned the lesson, we three children would pile in the station wagon on a Saturday in late August or early September and head to downtown Greensboro to the department stores that once dominated those streets. We'd be wearing our Sunday clothes, of course, because we were in the big city, and all day, we'd go from Meyers to Thalheimers to Belks and all the little ones in between, picking out something new for each of us children. We'd eat grilled cheese sandwiches at the lunch counter in the Meyers basement, followed by double-decker chocolate ice cream cakes. Supper was always at the S & W cafeteria. Within, say, an hour after supper, we'd finish our shopping, haul our bags back to the station wagon, and head home.

On the way out of town, we passed Krispy Kreme. It was an older building, and my recollection is it was not in the best part of town. My mother would shuffle us quickly from the car to the spinning vinyl stools inside where we would watch the sugary doughnuts roll off the metal racks. The cooks would give us doughnuts right off the machine, so hot we could barely hold them.

So it's no wonder I craved two hot glazed doughnuts after my arduous and unsuccessful day of back-to-school shopping.

There is no way to eat a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut gracefully, without sugar sticking to your fingers, your mouth, your entire face. There is no way to eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut while driving without dropping little flakes of sugar everywhere, in your lap, on the steering wheel, inside the gear shifts. I inhaled my two glazed. They were like eating sweet air. They were like taking a bite of heaven.

I spent the rest of my 30-minute ride home pressing my finger onto the little sugar flakes and placing them up onto my tongue.

So, here's my back-to-school advice: Save up until you really need them (otherwise you will begin to become a doughnut yourself). But when you need them, savor them. Melt them in your mouth. Drop sugar flakes everywhere. Let them soothe you down to your marrow. They will do that for you. Trust me on this one, honey.

First published in
The Dispatch (Lexington, NC).
Distributed nationally by the
New York Times News Service.