Didn’t you see the title? I don’t do weekends! This blog is closed today!
And tomorrow!
Why are you reading this? I’m not writing on this blog during the weekend! Stop it! Now, go watch a movie or something. Some of us want to sleep in.
Hey! You’re still reading! Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do here. Cut it out!
Go away!
Wait!
If you’re going out, can you bring me back a donut?
Originally Published 08/29/2009
Author’s Note: This posting was originally called “There’s a Donut Around my Hole”… but I think we can all agree that would have been an unfortunate choice of words.
I like donuts.
I used to eat them all the time until that tragic day when I realized I was spending 15 bucks a week in what was essentially a piece of dough bathed in sugar with a big hole in the middle. Now I only buy them once a week, which is healthier for me and my budget.
My favorites, of course, are Krispy Kreme, however I will settle for Dunkin at the absence of the aforementioned. There is, in fact, a Dunkin Donuts store open 24 hours and on the way to where I work, so you can imagine how difficult it is not stopping there every day. Hey, it’s all mind over batter. (Yes, it’s a bad pun, but I didn’t see you come up with it and it took me a whole paragraph to set it up so I’ll be damned If I’m not gonna use it.)
Now, the thing that has always bugged me about donuts is the big hole in the center. Why is there a hole in my donut? Who put it there and why? Those history books frugal enough to dwell into the origins of the donut will tell you that some guy named Hansen Gregory, who had nothing to do with the popular Mmmmbop music group of those three blonde sisters back in the nineties… huh?… oh… three brothers…you sure? Even the little one? Well, it was an honest mistake.
Anyway.
So Hansen Gregory claims to have invented the hole in the donut back in 1847 while he worked on a ship. Of course, claiming you invented the hole in the donut is a lot like claiming you invented the corners in the box.
Personally, I think it is rather convenient and I sustain that the hole in the donut is nothing more than an early Corporate strategy to increase revenues without raising prices, much like getting you to rent a car and then charging you an additional fee for the miles you drive in it. I base this theory in the fact that if you walk into a donut shop, be it Dunkin or Krispy, you will see rows and rows of delicious donuts and right next to them, maybe a few shelves down so you wont make the connection right away, they’re selling the donut HOLES!
Yes! The actual holes of the donut! For sale! What the hell is that all about? If I buy a dozen donuts, you can’t try to sell me the dozen holes that should have been in the donuts to begin with! That would be like buying a pizza and finding out it has a hole in the middle. You go back to Pizza Hut and complaint, “There’s a damn hole in my pizza!” The drone behind the counter replies “Dude… let me get the manager.” The manager comes and he’s only slightly smarter than the drone, but at least he has an answer.
-“Yes, the center of the pizza is sold separately now, we call them Pizza Holes. Would you like to buy one?”
-“No I don’t want to buy a Pizza Hole, I want the rest of my pizza!”
-“That is your pizza, sir. Pizzas are shaped like that now.”
-“There’s a hole in it!”
-“Would you like to buy one of our Pizza Holes?”
-“No!”
-“Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”
-“Yes! You can sell me a real pizza!”
-“You already have a pizza, sir. Would you like to buy a…”
-“F#@k you!”
-“Have a nice day, sir.”
Dunkin Donuts apparently realized how stupid it is to sell the missing part of something that only has a hole in the center because you purposely made it with a hole. So they don’t call their Donut Holes, Donut Holes, they call them munchkins…. Bullshit! They’re donut holes! Put them back in my damn donuts and quit trying to rip me off!
I mean, what is the purpose of that hole in the donut anyway? Donuts come in boxes, not inserted on a toilet paper tube. The hole has not functional use. And don’t even start with the nudist guy and the two cups of coffee cause there ain’t no one gonna eat those donuts anyway.
So the next time you walk into a donut shop, make sure you tell them loud and clear, “NO, I don’t want a donut hole, I want a whole donut, damit!! Oh, and a large Caramel Latte, please…extra whip cream.”
I did learn something useful from my extensive study and meditation on the folly of the donut hole. I learned that many people are just like the holes in your donuts. This is deep so pay attention.
Many people, like holes in a donut, are such that their worth lays not on themselves, but on that or those who surround them. In essence, they’re pretty much worthless without their buddies around them. I think we all knew a kid like that. in High School.
Well, I think I came dangerously close to being insightful back there so I’ll quit while I’m pointless.
Originally Published 08/28/2009
Well we’re back after a nice long weekend and this is a special week because it lacked a Monday! That’s right we skipped right over Monday and went straight to Tuesday, do not pass go, do not collect $200. So, on the day that would have been Monday but which was, instead, Labor Day, I took a little trip to Tampa because my geek sister insisted on watching the new Star Trek movie on a bigger screen, as in an IMax screen. Apparently a normal theater doesn’t have a screen big enough to fit a movie as big as Star Trek. I imagine in an IMax you can actually see the wax inside Leonard Nemoy’s pointy ears.
Disturbing thought, I know.
Anyway, I like the movie and all that but not enough to watch it on a screen where the US Enterprise is actually life size. So I dropped her off and went my merry way to the bookstore, mall, etc. This was my first trip using a little device with which I am sure most of you are well acquainted. It is called a GPS and it has a cool touch screen that shows you exactly where you are lost. Because you don’t want to have to keep looking at the screen of your GPS while you’re driving because it would distract you from that text message your’re sending, the device also has a voice that tells you when to turn and which way to turn.
“In point 3 miles, make a left turn.”
Even more amazing, it will talk to you in whatever language you understand best! When I got it it was talking Spanish: “Hacer un giro a la derecha y continuar seis millas.”
But I am Cuban and it knows it, smart little bastard, so next thing I know it’s talking Cuban: “Oye asere! Vira aqui mijito que nos vamo a dar tremenda perdia. Cuidao con el conten comemierda!”
I was astounded! I wanted to know what other languages it could do. So I told it I was from Hialeah. Sure enough: “Mira, aqui en this corner me haces un left y ten cuidado because este street es one way. Mira that hijoeputa cut you off. Give him the finger.”
It’s truly an amazing device. Or so I thought.
I told it to take us home and I, being so trusting, naively assumed it would take us back the way we came. Well the GPS was still in Hialeah mode so it went” “Mira, take your route y shove it up your culo.” And it proceeded to give us a guided tour of the darkest, most desolate roads every built by man. For a while it was fine, and then I make a couple of turns and realize the street lights are gone. This is never a good sign. Soon after that ALL the lights are gone. No city lights, no house lights, no even a bum with a cigarette lighter.
This, my friends, is how good horror movies start. I know, because I have watched a lot of them and they all started playing back at once in my head, “Wrong Turn”, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Night of the Living Dead”, “The Hills Have Eyes” although in Florida it would have to be called, “The Orange Groves Have Eyes”.
And while I am recounting every horror ever done to a lost traveler in a movie, we are driving down a road that is literally pitch black dark except for my trusty headlights, and where the last car we passed was twenty minutes ago. And next to me the GPS is going “Please continue driving for thirty miles.”
Are you kidding me? In twenty miles we will all have been killed by Jason, Freddie, Leatherface, Mike Meyers, Jigsaw and Dick Cheney. My ears will be hanging from some crazy hillbilly’s necklace and my skin will be part of his camping tent. Actually, with me they could probably make the whole tent, but let’s not go there. And just when I thought things could not get any creepier, the moon shows up… and it’s BLOOD RED! Hiding behind some creepy werewolf movie clouds in the horizon. And my GPS is still guiding me… “Please stay on this road for ten more miles or until captured and boiled alive by a band of mutant Amazonian cannibals, whichever comes first.”
Sadly we did not have the appropriate soundtrack to go with the situation, which I imagine would have to have been a recording of a question & torture session by an inquisitor in a medieval dungeon… maybe to the rhythm of Monster Mash. Lacking any such horrors to listen to, we had to settle for the next best thing, Jonas Brothers.
Well obviously we made it home eventually, all in one piece and without having to fight off a mob of starving Alabama zombies but I’ll be damned if I ever take directions from a GPS unit again, specially one who can talk spanglish. “You have arrived at your casa, pendejo. Next time, stick to the puñetero mapa.”
Originally Published 09/08/2009