Tag Archives: donuts

I’m not asking for much

I just wish that every once in a while the bank would make an error in my favor, just like in Monopoly, like one day I’d wake up and I’d get an email, and it would say it, word for word, however it is that it’s written on that Monopoly card, “Hey Rob, there’s been a bank error in your favor. Take fifty bucks.” Only I want it to be like a thousand bucks. How does that work anyway? The bank makes an error in my favor and they don’t want the money back? They let you keep it?

It’s like, you know how sometimes you crack an egg and you get two yokes? Just once, I’d love to buy a dozen eggs, and I’d crack them open, and all of them would have two, three yokes in each egg. I’d cook breakfast for everyone and people would be like, “Wow, Rob, you really went nuts on the eggs, good job man.” And I’d just smile, like you guys don’t even know, there were three yokes in each one of those eggs, and I didn’t break one of them, they all stayed perfectly intact, twelve textbook sunny-side up eggs, thirty-six golden liquid yokes.

Why can’t they ever just give me two towels at the gym? I see people all the time grabbing more than one, yet every time I even open up my hand like I’m going to grab two, the guy behind the desk is like, “Hey buddy, you see the sign, right? Tell you me don’t see the sign, it’s right there. You need help? Reading? You need me to help you read the sign?” And I want the conversation to just be over with, but no, he keeps talking, he reads it for me, “It says, ‘one towel per gym member per visit.’ You got that? You need help translating that sign?” And I’m just like, all right, one towel, fine, even though they’re so small, and by the time I’m off the treadmill, the machine is soaked, the towel is soaked, and then I get all these looks from everyone when I’m using that wet towel to just move around the sweat, like it’s clearly not doing anything. Just give me two towels.

You know what would be cool? If the radio DJ would just play my request, just once. I mean come on, you used to play Silverchair on the radio, why can’t you play them again? Just once, right? It’s like, come on, nobody even listens to the radio anymore. Do you want to me to keep tuning in? Because I have that Silverchair CD on my computer, OK, I don’t need you to play it for me. It would just be nice, all right, to call in to a radio station and have the DJ not just be a dismissive jerk. Like, “All right, next up, a special request from listener Rob!” is that really that big of a deal? You can’t even play me one song on the radio?

And why doesn’t Dunkin Donuts do a baker’s dozen? Can’t I get an extra donut? I’ve walked past you guys at the end of the night, OK, don’t think I don’t see all of those donuts you’re just tossing straight in the trash. You don’t think I would have eaten that? I mean, not stale and in the trash, but fresh, just give me an extra donut, OK, that’s what baker’s do, why do you have to buck tradition? Isn’t that something worth keeping around?

And can’t you just give me the employee discount? If you’re going to sell something at a discount price to one person, I don’t understand why you won’t give it to me. I’ll buy it, just not for list price. And why can’t I combine friends and family discounts with the employee discount?

And can’t I have a little extra chicken in my salad? No, I don’t want an additional side of chicken, just a little extra chicken, just a little bit, not a full side.

Not another Coke, just give me a splash, just something to wet my whistle, don’t charge me, come on dude, I’d do it for you.

I hate breakfast

I hate breakfast. Everybody’s always like, “Better eat a good breakfast! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” Fuck breakfast. There’s no way it’s more important than lunch or dinner. Hell, even a decent midafternoon snack is of more consequence than breakfast. Even if you don’t have anything in the house, just an apple maybe, a glass of juice. I’ll take a half-eaten bag of pretzels over breakfast any day of the week. Because breakfast sucks.

OK, take a second, close your eyes, imagine all of your favorite foods. Yeah, that’s it, OK, you’ve got them all there, now throw them all away, because we don’t eat any of that stuff for breakfast. Sorry, it’s just eggs and toast, bowls of cereal and yogurt, maybe some pancakes or waffles if your lucky, but even that’s kind of a once-in-a-while treat.

It’s terrible, because I wake up every morning and I’m starving. All I want to do is sit down and eat a full meal. But we don’t do that here. No, you’ve got to eat breakfast, a sorry excuse for what should be one of the three most pleasurable and delightful experiences of every day.

Most people don’t even bother with breakfast, simply because it’s not worth all of the time and trouble for something that’s ultimately not worth it. Better to just slog through the first part of the day on coffee alone and hope that you’re not too famished and pissed off by the time lunch rolls around.

Isn’t it like engrained in our culture? It’s almost perversely celebrated. It’s that scene that you always see in commercials for those Toaster Strudels or Go-Gurts or Eggo Waffles, where a family is running around the house like a bunch of lunatics in the morning, struggling to be wherever it is they’re supposed to get to time. “Don’t forget your breakfast!” the mom calls out to the dad who ran out the door with his tie undone around his neck, the little kids with their backpacks unzipped, homework flying everywhere. And then they stop for all of three seconds to stuff some hyper-processed piece of frozen garbage in their face, “Gee, thanks mom, you’re the best! You and Pop-Tarts!”

What’s there to look forward to? Get up every day, much earlier than you’d ever wake up if you had any real say of how you’d like to live your life, you barely have time to go to the bathroom and brush your teeth, let alone consider what you’ll ingest as a means of early morning sustenance, not that it matters, not like you have much of a choice.

Ninety percent of breakfast is just dessert dressed up like a full meal anyway, trying to weasel its way closer to the bottom of the food pyramid. And don’t get me wrong, I love dessert, I love Dunkin Donuts. But you give them to me for breakfast, the entire trajectory of my day is ruined. Now what am I supposed to eat for actual dessert? How am I going to be able to satisfy my ever intensifying sweet tooth when the stuff I’m being presented as a treat bears little difference to the four pieces of frosted cake I’ve just eaten this morning for breakfast?

No, I’m throwing in the towel on behalf of breakfast. Let’s just give it up, OK, we’re not doing anything productive in the morning, and we’re not fooling anybody by telling ourselves that the giant bowl of Waffle Crisp I shoveled into my mouth this morning is doing my body any nutritional good.

I blame the workday. I blame the morning. Do you think anybody wants to wake up and go straight to work? No, nobody does. And then by the time we get home, we’re exhausted, way too tired to even think about making something decent for dinner. You know what? Screw dinner, that’s not a meal either, it’s just a daily struggle not to feel guilty about all of the money we’re throwing away every night on take-out.

Just give me lunch, OK, that’s all I need, a giant lunch, like three sandwiches, I want a whole bag of chips. Right, chips aren’t exactly that healthy, but whatever, it’s the middle of the day, it’s my only real time to myself, out in the sunlight, feeling like an actual human being. I’ll eat whatever I want for lunch, all right, just don’t talk to me about breakfast anymore. Most important meal of the day? Ha. More like least important meal of the day. Ha.

Teambuilding

Of course I’m a team player. I just don’t like being told what to do. So as long as we can establish some team rules, you know, a solid foundation upon which we can build this team, a platform if you will, well, I don’t know why I said platform, it’s the same as foundation, but you get the idea right? We’re a team, and we’re always mindful of the principles that bind us together, first and foremost, don’t tell me what to do. Not you.

Definitely not Susan. Seriously, if she tells me to do one more thing, well, we’re still all going to be on a team. All of us, except for Susan. She’s going to be on a different team. By herself. Go ahead Susan, see if anybody wants to join your team. Anybody feel like switching sides? Because I hear Susan’s recruiting. What’s that Susan? You brought donuts? Sorry Susan, but nobody wants your cheap store-bought donuts, OK?

If you want real donuts, please, go to Dunkin Donuts, OK? And Steve, while you’re there, can you grab me an extra large with milk? And a bowtie? See if anybody else wants one. Please. See if the rest of the team needs any coffee. Team. Listen up, Steve’s going out for coffee. Here, Steve, put it on the corporate card.

Or, if you like, you can always switch teams. I hear Susan has a new team, a bunch of real up-and-comers. Who did they get? I heard they stole someone away from our side not too long ago. It was right about the same time that that box of old store-bought powdered donuts disappeared from the office kitchen. You know, the ones that must have left there by mistake last week, because nobody ate them, I don’t even think anybody bothered to open the box.

Oh yeah, that was Susan, right, she’s the one that we lost. But who else? Did anybody else switch sides? Nobody? It’s just Susan? Well, that doesn’t really sound like enough people to make up a whole team. It’s more like she’s her own non-entity, a free-agent of sorts, although, considering how there aren’t too many other teams around this office, you know, besides our team, I can’t really see anybody picking her up. She’d have to make a pretty generous offer.

She’d have to go out and treat everybody to burritos. And not on the corporate card. That would have to be like a personal gift, from Susan, to the rest of the team. And even then, it’s not like we’d just let her back on the team automatically. The burritos would be a good first step, absolutely, but it would be an act of faith. Maybe we’d let her back on. Maybe not. Probably not.

But maybe. And even though I’m not guaranteeing anything, I do guarantee this, that if and when we decide to let Susan back on the team, she’s starting from the bottom. And Susan, I don’t know why you haven’t already started taking everybody’s burrito order, but you should pay attention here. If we start you from the bottom, temp, or assistant temp, it’s not a punishment, no, it’s for your own good. You’ve got to learn the fundamentals of being a team player. You need like a foundation.

There I go, saying foundation again, totally unnecessary. I need some coffee. Is Steve back? What, he didn’t leave yet? He’s on a call? Hey Susan, good news, it looks like there’s actually enough for a new team, now that we’ve had to let Steve go. You hear that Steve? Yeah, you’re on a new team, it’s just you and Susan. You like that? Do you?

Hello? Yes, this is Rob. No, boss, I was just doing some teambuilding exercises. She said what? No, that’s crazy, I don’t know what she’s talking about. Well, was she drinking? Like, did she go out for lunch? Well, I don’t know, maybe she had a couple of drinks. She wasn’t really receptive to any of the teambuilding.

No, I just thought we could have used some … OK fine I’ll stop it … well why do I have to go to HR and sign papers? I don’t want to sign any papers. Because I was just joking around, why does everybody take everything so seriously? You’re telling me I don’t have a choice? Listen, boss, I’m not trying to make any threats here, but I’m this close to switching teams, OK, and to think, I was just about to buy everybody lunch. Do you like burritos boss? You ever have flautas? They’re delicious. They’re like little mini taco burritos. I’ll get you beef. Just hang tight boss, I’ll be down in fifteen.

Hey Susan, put down some beef flautas for the boss. Come on, this will be just the lunch to bring the team back together. Come on, Susan, please. Susan put down the phone. I said sorry. Come on Susan. I’ll tell you what, put down the phone and I’ll buy you lunch. You like chimichangas?

The Polar Vortex

As I’m writing this, most of the United States is dealing with the chilling effects of the Polar Vortex. It’s freezing. And yeah, sometimes I’ll write a blog post where I complain about the weather, about how I get too hot in the summer or too cold in the winter. But seriously, this is really cold. I wish I could take back everything I’ve ever said about the weather, because it all pales in comparison to whatever it is we’re experiencing right now.

I ride my bike to work every day. I don’t care if it’s raining or snowing or if it’s cold, I just bundle up, I’ll throw on a few waterproof layers in case it’s wet out, I’ll open my front door with my bike and I’ll say, “You call this a winter? Ha!”

And I did that today, but I couldn’t even get through that first sentence before physically recoiling from how cold it was. I was like, “You call this a …” and then the cold hit me all at once, the single digit temperature flooded the inside of my nose, and I’ve always heard people talk about having your nose hairs freeze upon contact with some really frosty air, but I’ve never actually had that happen, the sensation of ice forming up your nose, all the way up your head. I started coughing, I was like, “Holy shit, are you serious?”

Still, I don’t know, I’m stubborn, I figured I could tough out the fifteen minute bike ride. But I wasn’t even halfway there and I was regretting my decision. As I pedaled up the Queensboro Bridge, this arctic wind punishing me, trying to blow me down from the other direction, it made my face hurt, really badly. Even though I had gloves on, my fingers were losing all sensation. With one hand grabbing the handlebars, I concocted this ridiculous routine of blowing into my fist, then using that hand to deliver about a quarter of a second’s worth of warmth to somewhere on my face.

How do you live like this, Northern Canada? When I got out of work, as I walked to my bike totally dreading the ride back, I took my left hand out of my glove for just a second, just so I could do a quick unlock and start pedaling back, and I didn’t even know that this was possible, but the actual lock was frozen. It took me like five minutes just to get it through the hole, and when I did, there wasn’t any turning. It wouldn’t budge, it was completely stuck.

So I just ran for it, fuck that shit. If I had stayed outside just standing there, fiddling around with a bike lock for any longer, I wouldn’t have made it. If someone wants to tough it out overnight and try to pick the lock, be my guest, because if you’re willing to brave that type of cold just to steal what can only be thirty or forty bucks worth of bike parts, you’ve earned it, all right, you obviously need it more than I do.

And so I finally made it home. I stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way back, and all I’ve been doing for the rest of the day is sitting here buried under five layers of sweatshirts, I’m drinking coffee and I’m eating donuts. That’s it. I’ve already eaten like six donuts. Because no way am I ever going outside again unless I’m protected by a layer of warming fat. All of these hours of running and exercise, and what do I have to show for it? I can’t stop shivering. I’ve already taken like three hot showers, and my feet are still cold. No way, the next time you see me, I’m going to be morbidly obese. I’ll be fat, but I’ll be warmer. And whatever, I love donuts. I could sit here and eat donuts all day for the rest of my life. Bring it on Polar Vortex. Is this as cold as it’s going to get? Ha!

I’m so grateful

I’m so grateful on Thanksgiving. I’m grateful for Thanksgiving. I hate going to work on Thursdays, so it’s really nice to not have to show up. I’m really grateful for all of the gratitude I feel, mostly just today, because it’s Thanksgiving, and I really want to be true to the spirit of the holiday, extra thankful. I always say thank you, in general, but on Thanksgiving, I say it at least three times, sometimes more. Like even though I hate the idea of shopping on Thanksgiving or consumerism on Thanksgiving, there’s always at least one part of the day where I’m either driving to my in-laws’ house, or to my grandfather’s house, I always stop at Dunkin’ Donuts, probably because it’s the only place that’s really open for business, I get an extra large coffee, some donuts, even though I don’t need donuts at all, it’s just that I love Dunkin’ Donuts’ donuts, I’m so grateful for them, and after I pay, I tell the cashier, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you …” at least a dozen times, a baker’s dozen, even though Dunkin’ Donuts only gives you a regular, non-baker’s dozen, but whatever, I’m grateful for that too, knowing that, at Dunkin’ Donuts, you know exactly what you’re getting when you say, “Give me a dozen, thanks.” Extra thanks.

I’m grateful for the twist ties on the loaves of bread that you buy at the grocery store. I know it seems like a pretty trivial thing to be thankful for, but I’m thankful for everything, especially the little stuff, especially on Thanksgiving, and even more especially since I started buying six-packs of Thomas’ English muffins. They’re awesome, I’m so grateful to be able to go out and buy them, to have them for breakfast, I’m grateful for my toaster, it’s so reliable, I remember when we were shopping for a toaster, I told my wife, “It has to be an Oster brand appliance,” which, I don’t really know where I got that from. Did I mention that I’m really grateful for my wife? It’s just that, somewhere along the line, the idea planted itself in my head that, if I buy any appliance, it has to be Oster. It’s the gold standard of all appliances. And so my wife wanted this Kitchen-Aid toaster, it had a lot more functions, it was cheaper. But no, I insisted on the classic Oster toaster, exactly what you’d imagine a toaster to look like. Like, if you went into any random kindergarten class and told the kids, “All right kids, draw a picture of a toaster,” they’d all draw it more or less looking exactly like ours. Except there’s usually that one kid that insists on drawing Batman or Spider-Man, but whatever.

Wasn’t I talked about twist ties? I’m grateful for them. They’re super useful. I’m not grateful for the plastic tabs that come with the English muffins. I can never bunch up the plastic in such a way as to get it fully cinched, it’s impossible, and the more I try to maneuver everything in place, it starts bending, finally it loses its structural integrity, so even if you somehow manage to get it closed up, it all slowly starts to unfold. Whatever, that’s a petty thing to bring up on a Thanksgiving blog post, all of this stuff about gratitude. I guess I should just say that I’m grateful that I know the difference between twist ties and tab ties, and that I’m thankful that I understand that the twist ties are awesome and the tab ties are terrible.

Going back to Oster appliances for just one second, I was thinking about this one time we needed to buy a blender, and even though I kept saying, listen to me, it has to be Oster, you’ll be grateful later, I lost the argument, we bought some off brand. It lasted like a month, not even, I think we made half a round of margaritas before it broke, no warranty, nothing. I always used to get so mad thinking back on that experience, but it’s Thanksgiving, and I’m trying to be grateful, and so yeah, I guess I am thankful we bought that piece of garbage, if only to prove my point that you simply have to buy Oster, every single time. So yeah, I’m very grateful. I’m so lucky and thankful to be able to be so grateful and appreciative.

Happy Thanksgiving.