The Magic Sign

There isn’t a Krispy Kreme in Brisbane. But they are popping up in some of Australia’s other major cities. When I flew back to Brisbane from both Melbourne and Sydney recently I saw multiple people on each flight with boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts. I don’t get that. I also don’t get the mini Krispy Kreme donuts that were starting to pop up in all the Casino food courts and malls in Vegas right before I left.

Krispy Kreme donuts are just donuts except… except when they are bathed in the magic light of the sign! Oh yes, the sign with those two special words: "Hot" and "Now".

The sign is turned on when the donuts are being made. It is when those little lumps of dough take that magic ride along the conveyor belt of happiness and are magically transformed into the Food of the Gods. It when you can press your nose against the glass, pick out an unassuming lump of dough and say, “that one! I am going to eat that one!” And then you can watch it travel up and down, around and about, under the waterfall of frosting and then out to the front of the store. You can point out your donut to the ultra cool chick-magnet of a guy who gets all the girls (because he can get free donuts) who will happily pull it off the belt and server it up to you. Personally I like a ice-cold carafe of strawberry milk with mine.

I remember a few years ago David Yee, who worked at Westwood having recently left SOE where he had worked on Everquest. He was trying to get his friend, whose name escapes me, hired on as well. We flew his friend out for an interview and after work we all took him out to dinner. Then we went over to Mary K’s arcade which my friend Adam tells me has since been turned into a pool hall.  Afterwards one of us got the idea to go to Krispy Kreme. The cry went up, “KRISPY KREME!” and we tumbled out of the arcade, arms waving and yelling our cry! We piled into the car and shot off across town. When we got with in sight we saw that the sign was lit! We screamed our joy and screeched into the parking lot, leapt from the car and ran into the store arguing over which sad little lump of dough was going to turn into the magical, mouth-watering, ring of godly pleasure we would eat.

He thought we were nuts.

We all sat at the table eating donuts in single bites while swigging down the moo juice. He sits down with a plate of 3 regular donuts.

There was a sudden silence and much confusion.

“What are you doing? You got the wrong donuts!”

“I don’t like plain glazed donuts.”

“They aren’t PLAIN glazed donuts! They… they’ve just been down… look the sign… KRISPY KREME.”

“So?”

“Here eat this one, ill get another”

There was another silence as he took a bit. I don’t think any of expected anything other than what happened, but I can say there was an edge of nervousness on all our faces. We were in fact risking the fabric of our world if he didn’t just keel over and die of pleasure at that one bite. He did though. He literally swooned.

“Oh my God! This is the best donut that I’ve ever tasted! It’s like liquid sugar that is somehow still in solid form. It just melts in your mouth.”

I’m paraphrasing those second two sentences because he was busily stuffing his mouth at that point and it was a bit difficult to understand what he was saying.

I miss those late night Krispy Kreme runs. Drew sent me a link of some place here in Brisbane that not only claims fresh baked donuts but they also deliver. We haven’t tried them out yet, but I am not getting my hopes up.