What I am about to write is heresy. There is this thick ball of hair in the pit of my stomach as I sit down to write this. (Note to self: Brush cats before you lick them). When Galileo sat down to write The Origin Of Species, I doubt he thought about the huge backlash I myself will receive from publishing this piece. Probably because he didn't know me. I speak, of course, about not liking Dunkin Donuts.
Growing up, Dunkin Donuts was a second home to me. I have vague memories of an elderly woman in a cranberry-colored sari and a Dunkin' Donuts visor cap diapering me while squirting milk from her life-giving cha-chas first into my mouth and then into a steaming cup of sugary java. Unless those aren't memories at all, but LSD fantasies.
But I did frequent DD a lot. I drank so much of their coffee, my urine had an earthy smell and my feces were like wet coffee grounds than anything solid. Sometimes I wondered about putting my feces in the coffee basket, brewing it with my own urine. But wondering about it didn't stop me from
doing it. My mother would scream at me for ruining her Mr. Coffee and throw me out. Nowhere to turn, I'd end up at DD, thus completing the vicious cycle.
Their donuts and coffee rolls held a special place in my heart too. In fact, they had quite a stranglehold on my heart with their sweet, sweet cholesterol and lard.
And DD did the impossible, they introduced bagels, flavored cream cheese, flavored coffees, iced coffee, and weird frothy frosty fruity drinks. DD had nowhere to go but up. But like Agamemnon, they flew too close to the sun and exploded.
What happened, you ask? Three things: 1) DD's new hiring policies stipulated they only acquire workers with the short term memory of a goldfish; 2) Good donuts, like the Cake Donut and the Maple Frosted with Sprinkles became as rare as gold-foiled Squirtle Pokemon cards (but not as easily tradable); 3)
Krispy Kreme launched a staggering competitive campaign, the likes of which haven't been experienced since Lau Tzu's The Art of War and Michelangelo's The Prince.
Let us take a closer look.
1. How freakin difficult is it to remember "Egg onion bagel, microwaved for 20 seconds, then lightly toasted, with half vegetable cream cheese spread, the other half with one slice of American cheese, folded, with a large hot French Vanilla coffee with cream, no sugar, and a powdered donut and a double-chocolate croissant." Nine times out of ten they get my order wrong. What kind of operation are they running here??
2. Look, I'm no early morning whack job. How anyone can be awake and fully-functional by 2 pm is beyond me. But when I get around to going to DD, all the good donuts are gone. What's left is the standard chocolate glazed, the neglected and probably expired Boston Cremes, and the ironically
untouched Dunkin Donut. (For a donut so plain and tasteless, why the hell would anyone want to name their company after it??) The good donuts are gone and only weird bagels remain, like the ones with the berries in them. That short guy was always harping "it's time to make the donuts." Well, maybe
that time should be in the late afternoon, when normal people are awake and hungry.
3. Krispy Kreme—the Donut Arch Nemesis. All I can say is if you have not yet experienced the Krispy Kreme phenomenon, you do not deserve to call yourself a carbon-based primate life-form of the kingdom plantae, let alone share the air I breathe.
DD has a long way to go to get back on my good side. The Grimm Brothers must have had donuts in mind when they wrote the fable "The Fox and the Sour Grapes." For I am the fox and I don't like grapes. Nor Dunkin Donuts.
[Adam doesn't like Dunkin Donuts, but he sure likes people checking out his website at www.readmag.com! So go check it out!!!!] |
