It was a voice from the back seat that started this. We were passing the donut shop. I had just made one of my normally odd comments that came out something like, "We should just have donuts for dinner." I didn't mean it.
It was past 6:00pm and the sun had set. It was cold out. Warm, glazed donuts sounded good. I'm not known for healthy choices.
That voice from the back seat said, "I want warm donuts." The teenage girl in the back seat had confirmed in a manner quite like Spock saying, "I like science."
My wife was driving and we went on to make the stop that we had came that way to make. The store visited and the purchase made we had left the store and were again passing the donut shop.
The van nosed into the parking lot. Donuts were soon to become a reality.
This was a well known chain, the name we will leave out. But it is fairly easy to get fresh, warm donuts many times throughout the day at this particular establishment.
My wife went to the counter.
My daughter and I went to the large panes of glass separating the dining area from the sprawling apparatus that made the donuts.
Metal conveyers took the doughy rings up and down while dough began to fluff a bit, eventually depositing the soon to be donuts to float and cook on top of the hot oil. They then proceeded to a device that flipped them over in the oil to finish cooking the other side. Once they exit the oil the proceed to another metal belt where they are directed under an icing flow to become... a simple glazed donut. A nice, uniform, tasty, glazed, donut. A donut just like all the other donuts.
We had gotten there just as the start of a new batch began dropping into the oil.
Something had went wrong. Usually the donuts enter the oil in neat rows and proceed to the flipper and travel on to be iced. One donut had landed in the oil ahead of it's designated row and was mostly in the oil, but partly lying on a metal rod designed to keep the rows uniform during the cooking process. The ones in the row behind this lone donut landed properly and all looked the same.
The single donut, now leading the pack like a fox before hounds, looked nothing like the others. Being two-thirds in the oil apparently doesn't bode well for donuts. The end of the donut mostly in the oil swelled to twice the size of its brothers and sisters while the leading edge trapped on the rod remained a paler shade of donut dough.
My kid and I moved slowly along, watching the progress of this single deformed, oddly cooking donut, inching our way along, laterally moving toward the terminus of cooking and the sales counter. We were laughing a bit and talking about the donut.
Our little conversation was interrupted by a "splat" against the glass. My daughter startled a bit and then raised her eyes to see one of the bakers laughing on the other side of the production area. A hunk of donut dough had been thrown at her general location behind the glass. She gave him her best evil eye.
We learned later at the counter that they like to do this when people are intently watching the donut creating process. Cool, customer-centered interaction. I approve.
All attention returned to our misshapen friend on the line. We started wondering if it was cooked through... if it would be sold... just wondering what would happen. It was different... even special... in a weird, half cooked sort of way.
It of course, by nature of the mishap, beat the others to the icing flow and was covered, now complete by donut standards I suppose. It now headed toward the end of the line. It trundled along.
We knew we were getting warm donuts; usually at least a dozen of them anyway.
We joined my wife at the counter. We told her about the donut. Not sure she shared our enthusiasm about our strangely contoured confection that was still wobbling down the conveyor toward the counter.
I mentioned to my wife and daughter that I hoped we would get THAT donut. Why, I don't know. Like so many things in the spur of the moment, I just said it.
My daughter then said, "You want that donut?"
"Yep."
The young lady working the counter, moved toward the advancing donut horde with the carryout box and started looking at the donuts. That donut that had made it first down the line, one side larger than the other, two shades of donut color, dripping with icing... she poked it. She took the tool to lift the donuts into the box and she poked it. The look on her face wasn't a good one.
I instantly knew that this donut had failed some sort of test. She dropped it back on the conveyor and started to put the more identical donuts in the box.
I thought about that donut... now making the U-shape in the conveyor to head toward the "end of the line" and whatever hell there was for misshapen donuts. My daughter was looking at me, knowing what I was thinking.
The young woman handed my wife the box of a dozen... uniform... perfect... conforming donuts.
I think all three of us spoke at once with my daughter and wife asking if I could have the lone, exiting, donut while I voiced the same thing in the first person.
The girl paused, clearly not getting why in the world I would want this particular donut. "I'm not sure it is all the way done."
"It's OK," I said. "I'm good with it. It's different."
She handed me the donut wrapped partially in one of those little pieces of wax paper made specifically for handling donuts.
I moved away from the counter and took a bite. Warm, sweet and for the most part done. It was perfect enough for me.
My daughter asked if it was good as she munched on one of the imperfect donuts' more normal siblings. I nodded and said it was indeed excellent.
You don't have to be perfect to be good.
