Donut Drive-Through

Donuts. I don’t think I’ve written it before, but I like donuts. Especially interesting donut flavors (as long as I also get a plain glazed backup, just in case something goes wrong. You really can’t go wrong with a plain glazed). There is something obviously eye catching about those new menu items, those big bright colors and bold descriptions.

Last Saturday (April 5th), I drove to Krispy Kreme with my mom for the second to last day of Chocomania. A holiday celebrated by an assortment of four different types of chocolatey donuts. There was the Hershey’s Chocolate Salted Caramel Cheesecake Doughnut (not good), the Hershey’s Chocolate Buttercream Donut (ok), the Hershey’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Donut (not good), and the Hershey’s Classic Chocolate Donut (good). I’d wanted to go for a while but wasn’t truly moved to go until I saw another ad advertising an additional deal. Buy a dozen donuts, get a dozen fruity pebble donuts for five dollars. I jumped in the car, mom joined for the drive, and we were on our way. About forty minutes later (no traffic), I parked and got out to order. But something was wrong, there was a big sign in front that read “Closed for renovations. Walk ups for online pickup until 8:30. Only drive through after.” It was a bit of a bummer, but nothing too bad. While walking back to the car, we placed the order. The time was 8:04pm and the confirmation email said our donuts would be ready in ten minutes. Perfect.

Mom mentioned wanting to go to TJ Maxx for some shampoo that wasn’t sold anywhere else. Walking about eighty feet to the right, we stepped into the most chaotic TJ Maxx I’ve ever seen, maybe the only one I’d ever seen. Merchandise was everywhere, the categories made no sense, and two dogs were barking at each other on the base of the tile steps. We darted through the aisles, found the shampoo, then hustled over to checkout where there was a line so long we couldn’t help but laugh. I mean there were at least thirty people in front of us all with hefty carts, and four lonely cashiers sorting through it all. Credit to those cashiers though, they moved that line along as quickly as they could. I zoned out for most of it. After mom and I passed the last scanner, the fresh air cleared my thoughts and I immediately thought “oh no”, checked the time … 8:40.

People were crazy trying to get into the Krispy Kreme drive-through, mall security even had to get involved. Someone cut in the line and the yellow vested mall man made them reverse and go to the back. Honestly, it was a lot like middle school.

I’m going to be even more honest, I loved sitting in that drive through, listening to music, looking at the other cars on the side of the road, some of them were really cool. Jace, the absolute legend behind the drive-through mic, sounded friendly, undeterred even by the onslaught of vehicles, and I’m sure, some unhappy drivers. I received the two dozen donuts, careful to not hit my face with the boxes when flinging them into the car, handed them to mom who placed them in the back. I was too tired to try them right away so we both agreed to get home first.

Again, no traffic on the way home, but all the other cars were going way too fast, hovering around 80mph. I puttered along in the slow lane at sixty-four. In total, the donut trip took three hours. When I opened the box, and bit into the extra special round, I could taste the fruity pebbles, it was a prominent flavor, and even a hint of milk came through. All in all, not good combo. I’m glad to have gone on the adventure, glad that mom got her shampoo, but I’m happiest that I remembered to get a plain glazed backup.