My kids like donuts. My husband likes donuts. Heck, I like donuts. They just don’t like me…well to be more specific, they don’t like my hips.  Having said this you would probably suspect that I run screaming and yelling into the night when someone in my family suggests donuts. You are about to be surprised.

 

The nearest Dunkin Donuts to my house is a Dunkin Donuts “Lite.” It is located inside the closest gas station to my home. As a person who has turned driving on fumes into an art form, the location of this gas station is of major strategic import. I use the term “lite” to distinguish this Dunkin Donuts from another one further down the road, which boasts a drive through and baking on the premises. This second one is also strategically placed as it sits just enough drive distance from the Richmond Olympiad gym for a hungry 10 year old to gobble down a plain bagel with strawberry cream cheese before hitting the floor for four hours of flipping, multiple times a week. Said gymnast’s Mom can grab a very large coffee before watching all of this flipping four hours at a clip, multiple times a week.

 

Back to the donuts. For years to the familiar chimes of “I didn’t have time to eat this morning” and “let’s get donuts” I have battled the donut demon. Traveling on the aforementioned fumes, with at least one and sometimes two sets of brown eyes pleading with me through the rear view mirror, I’ve been implored to stop for gas and donuts.  Sometimes, my resolve intact, I have braved a possible personal gas crisis and floored it, pupils fixed and dilated, as we passed the familiar orange and fushia sign. Other times though, in either a fit of motherly love or an inability to deal with the whining, I mean chimes, I would be compelled to stop. After pumping gas, I would enter the gas station, firmly willing my inner-donut-loving-self with a wishful mantra - just a coffee for me please, just a coffee for me please, just a coffee for me please. As I stood in line with my two daughters debating which variety to choose, I would gaze longingly and lovingly at the cases filled with bagels, muffins, donuts and the worst of all waistline enemies, the glazed apple fritter. Unfortunately, I would, on very rare occasions succumb to these temptations and order some…ahem, for the office, of course.