Doughnut Confidential

This is a very serious subject.


Retract earlier statement: this is not a serious subject. It is funny and slightly sad and borders on embarrassing. I spelled embarrassing wrong the first time around. That was embarrassing. 


This is the little known story of the doughnut and what it means to me. Take with care the cryptic secrets I am about to unlock. These are the ex-files, no, not that 90s FBI show about unsolved paranormal phenomena. It is the story of  the first "ex" and doughnuts. Yes, that kind of "ex."


If you just gasped, fearing a flood of expletives on its way, or Lord-knows what people say in public about their private relationships, I will do nothing of the kind. You are a few and cherished readership, I refuse to drive off. After all, this story is not about me, its about doughnuts. And other things I deem interesting to say.




Photo courtesy of herobyday.
(Black line courtesy of myself :)

The deep-fried sugar-glazed comfort I have always known and loved, preferably with a slight maple coating and shaped in the rectangular Roth's Family Market way, was once threatened to destruction forever. Culprit? Emotional ties to eating; memories associated with taste and smell that can revive delighted-in childhood memories, or alternatively, fear and loathing.

I have this miraculous capacity to overcome the latter kind of memory; the time when I threw up chocolate, and the bravery, or ignorance, exhibited when I dared to eat semi-sweet morsels again. It is a strength I hope to pass on to future generations.

I am off-putting the inevitable doughnut story. It's because I really don't want to tell it. But with the virtual mask of the blogosphere to my advantage, even the reticent speak with bold and reckless abandon. 

Something at the 24-hour Winchells Doughnut shop on Rosecrans went horribly, terribly wrong. It was not their heinous mispelling of doughnut as "donut", though regrettable. It was really the fact I was sitting at the Winchells at all. I hate that Winchells, and not just any, you see, but that one in particular, off some junky San Diego side street. I'd have the notion to set it ablaze. Don't take that comment too seriously, more in the literary sense of  the word fire.
Formerly, I was apt to offer up my heart over a sugary doughnut treat. But this was not the occasion to share a sugary treat, or in any case, my heart. No, not then. I was there to  wave the white flag of failure.


My first boyfriend who shall remain nameless, because names are not important and remember, (this story is about doughnuts) thought it appropriate to discuss our fated ending in this doughnut shop. 

There were no fond attachments to this doughnut house, no memories or visits there together--it wasn't even the halfway point between our two places of residence. But there I stood, before the high heaven of heart attacks on Rosecrans Avenue, glaring with a feeling I deigned to accept: heartache.

I should not have agreed to go. But I had this intractable hope for normalcy between us. I like to call it Fanciful Notion #1, this hope that drove my car into the space next to his. There would be many notions of like-kind to follow.

At Winchell's, Home of the Warm 'N Fresh, on a September-something evening, I was feeling quite the opposite. Cold and stale was a closer reading of my hard-convinced heart that things were not right in the universe of our couple-hood.

Mortified, tears of acceptance ran down my cheek as the man behind the counter witnessed our relationship dissolve into nothingness. I nurtured a little bit of hate for him, I will confess, being the vendor of the tasty treat my former boyfriend enjoyed before me with the ease of a midnight snack. I could have fried him in his own grease, that pretentious doughnut seller.

But to be fair, it wasn't the doughnut seller's fault. It was the handling of my honest emotions poured forth; as a grease traced napkin, once possessed of something sweet, now tossed aside with irrelevance. It was the fact that I could not think, let alone eat in the wake of this loathsome feeling, as I watched my once boyfriend lick his fingers of powdered sugar, washing his hands of what had been.

It would take the passing of many holiday dinners to remind me how to eat for pleasure again that year. That was embarrassing to say, I want you to know. But that cavalier, finger-lickin' damnation of our time together was a revelation for me. With a stomach churned of grief, I learned to overcome.

Silly as it seems, years later the enjoyment of an apple-cider doughnut on the stop before home by Bauman Farm's has never tasted so empowering. Now considering that day, I am determined not to be rid of my love for deep fried fat. Men come and go and I've decided that the doughnuts for one, shall keep coming.



You can laugh if one day I'm fat, permission granted. I'll laugh too because that's what fat ladies do, or is it sing? At least I'll be happy. Happy for a memory, though sad, not to destroy the sweet little things I love about life. I have extracted the final ounce of meaning left in this doughnut story and have only to leave you with this Warm 'n Fresh wisdom. Eat your heart out Winchell's, it's nothing personal.