Bumper Sticker

Perhaps it's confirmation bias, but I seem to see donuts EVERYWHERE now that I've embarked upon a Year Without Donuts.

Today? A round, frosted, donut bumper sticker.

The Backstory

So here’s how it happened.

Day after New Year’s Day. Church. Only one service (instead of the usual two) and no Sunday School. Instead, they served donuts after the service. I, of course, intended to head straight for the silver platters full of donut-y goodness and indulge.

I walked with a friend. Her daughter was already eating a sprinkled, frosted donut. I mentioned that I’d like to have one. My friend said, “Do you know what’s in those things? Just think of how many of your homemade chocolate chip cookies you could have and still not come close to the sugar and oils in that one donut.”

That stopped me. I thought, well, fine, I would skip donuts today.

As I drove home, I began thinking about my sacrifice. And thinking that maybe I should do more than just skip donuts on that one day. Maybe I could make my spur-of-the-moment sacrifice into a larger statement. To give meaning to my impromptu martyrdom at the temple of the holy donut.

And I thought maybe, just maybe, I would have a Year Without Donuts. Maybe by sacrificing the sugary perfection of the donut for one year, I would learn to appreciate even more the inherent truth and goodness it represented. Maybe I could come out of it with a deeper appreciation for the luscious round treat.

And here’s the thing. It was already brewing in my subconscious. For just the month before, I’d decided to quit Dunkin’ Donuts.

Last Christmas, I encountered a donutpocalypse. But surely, I figured, it was a one-time event. Surely they were out of donuts on that day just because it was so near the holidays.

But it wasn’t a one time event. It kept happening. I’d go to a Dunkin’ Donuts with the intention of grabbing a double chocolate and be disappointed to find none, or to find they only had one or two and they were stale. My wife stopped in to get some for my birthday only to find that they had very few donuts on their shelves, and none that were ones I liked. And I took my kids in a week or so after that, and discovered the same thing. There was only one, one solitary donut of a variety I loved available. I bought it and it was crunchy and stale. And my kids had to share one donut, a frosted cake, the only one they cared to try.

If I go to a Dunkin Donuts in the afternoon, they are completely decimated. There are no donuts to be found in my local Dunkin’ Donuts.

And they aren’t the same. I’ve been riding on a wave of nostalgia for the “time to make the donuts” fresh-to-each-store batches I grew up on. The factory-made and trucked-in hockey pucks they have these days just are not the same.

So I decided I’d had enough. I would no longer bother stopping in at Dunkin’ Donuts. If I wanted a donut, I’d go to Krispy Kreme for a glazed, where at least I knew they'd be Hot Fresh Now.

And so, on that drive home from church, it seemed like a good idea. A Year Without Donuts. Why not? After all, I still had homemade chocolate chip cookies at home. And plenty of coffee…

Dreams and Portents

Yesterday, a friend on Facebook asked if I'd tried the new dark chocolate donut from Krispy Kreme. I confessed that I hadn't and explained that I was living a Year Without Donuts. She was, in a word, horrified, and said she'd have to try it herself.

--

Last night I dreamed we were going into some sort of courtroom. We were scooping up leaves to bring inside with us and spread on the floor. Lots of leaves, all the same - brittle, circular, a very light brown color.

A woman carried the wings of a broken airplane and they were key to the court case. But I had with me the tail section of the plane, upon which was affixed the Dunkin Donuts logo. I showed the woman how the tail section fit perfectly onto her wing section. She was thrilled, wanted me to bring it into the courtroom.

But I warned her, this would make a big difference in the case - it puts the pieces of the plane together but it will mean much less money for us from the jury. So what do you want, I asked, the complete plane or the cash?

I slipped the tail section into my pocket and entered the building. Leaves covered the floor.

--

Meanwhile, as I was trolling the internets this morning, I navigated, as I do every day, to Boing Boing, only to be greeted with this headline: Donuts, Genocide and the American Dream.

Is this confirmation bias, or am I being assaulted with donuts everywhere I turn?

Synchronicity

Last Sunday, I spontaneously decided that this would be a Year Without Donuts.

Then, today, this article came across my RSS feed.

Perhaps I'm not the only one...

Inevitability

It was inevitable, I suppose. Last night I dreamed of donuts.

They were sliced up, cut into bite sized pieces, the pieces themselves strewn across countertops.

I could see them. I could almost touch them. But they remained just out of my reach. No matter what I did, I couldn't get any of the donuts.

What do you suppose this means?

The Year Without Donuts

And lo, I beheld before me a multitude of donuts, arranged on silver trays, plentiful and good. They glistened in their kind, the sugary glazed, the luscious frosting, the bursting creme-filled.

And I saw that they were good.

And I kept my hand at my side.

And I did not partake.

I closed my eyes and walked away, leaving the donuts behind me, casting them from my thoughts. For I knew that their effervescent purity disguised a veritable tub of lard and refined sugars.

And to honor my own sacrifice, to give some sort of meaning to my split-second decision, to make sense of my unexplainable actions, I declared that this would be a Year Without Donuts.

I will no longer partake of the holy donut. I will shun their sugary goodness. I will forsake the sprinkles of peace, I will close my eyes to the frosting of light.

I will be strong. I will give my arteries a rest. I will live an entire year without donuts.

Good thing I baked all those chocolate chip cookies.

UPDATE

The backstory.

Hungry Robots

Yes, we made one of those text-to-movie deals...

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/8136045