Saturday, August 30, 2008

Oh!! The Humanity!

**Warning to my readers who are a little faint of heart: This post may not be for you. I am not in a "good place" right now, so I may offend. Please proceed with caution!

So a couple of weeks ago, Dunkin Donuts made a comeback to the Valley. They have been shunned for the last several years by Phoenicians and Valley-ites. Thanks goes to Krispy Kreme and the sugar-induced hypnosis they brought with them. KK's donuts are only good when hot, but they thought it was in their best interest to over-saturate the market with those glazed dough-fluffs until almost no one wanted another donut in their life.

In fact, about two years ago, Darrell and I were watching a Boston Red Sox game. On the back wall of the Green Giant, is a huge ad for Dunkin Donuts. We talked about how long it had been since we had been to a DD and talked about our favorite of all time donut--The French Cruller. We went to sleep a few hours later and I dreamt of French Crullers. When I awoke, I told Darrell we HAD to go. We tracked down the one Dunkin Donuts left in business and made the trek. Oh the Joy! Oh the Deliciousness! But since this shop was far enough away (and in the Mesa Grid of Stupidity--a post will need to be devoted to this later), we didn't go back.

Fast forward to the present. (Insert your own sound effect here). Yesterday I missed the turn to get on the freeway from work, so I took an alternate way home. I passed two billboards for Dunkin Donuts and decided we had to go. Darrell was not about to argue with me, especially since this meant I would be out of the house on an adventure before noon on a Saturday, with no prodding from him.

We get to Dunkin Donuts and there is a line almost out the door. This means that we have time to get REALLY hungry. We also have time to decide we want more than one donut. We (finally) get to the counter and order our French Crullers. Here is how the order went down:
"We don't have any," said the Dunkin Donuts Employee (DDE for short).
"Are you just out?" I ask kindly.
"No," replied DDE.
"So you don't make them at all?" I ask. I like that I have to use my communication skill acquired from several years of annual customer service training. You know the training....Active Listening 101, where you learn the difference between hearing and listening, reflecting vs repeating, etc.
"No," replied DDE. (Do you notice a trend with DDE? No Active Listening 101 for her--she must not be a "Career-Path" DDE.)
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I cried, falling to my knees, hunched over, as if the wind had been knocked out of me. It wasn't "as if," because it had.
YEARS of anticipation--gone out the window. Like yesterday's donut-frying vat o'grease!
Why? Why have I been forsaken? I'm a good person! I call my mom. I don't litter. I don't pinch babies and make them cry. I've never even run over an animal (not even the tarantula I tried to squash in Tucson!). I'm a good person. Is this the thanks I get for years and years of doing the "right thing?" (I do need to give Darrell credit for this line of thinking--it's something he's said for as many years as I've known him and I want to make sure he gets the credit.).
So now I have to learn to make French Crullers. And this means I probably will need to buy a deep-fryer. And that will probably lead me down the road of making other fried-foods best left to professionals. Not because I can't make food as good as the professionals, but that I shouldn't. I mean, easy access to FRIED FOOD (a drug of my choosing) can't be good.
Thank you Dunkin Donuts.

1 comment:

Just Pam said...

Was the Dunkin Donuts on University Ave. in Mesa? That's where we found them in 1971. We thought we had died and gone to heaven. Oh my gosh, all the varieties to choose from. Grandma , Grandpa, Lisa and Cary came to visit and we went miniature golfing and to Dunkin Donuts as one of the vacation destinations while they were in "The Valley".