Swimming
I needed a lifebelt. I found one. It was the slogan on the wall that saved me from ultimate drowning.
They sell doughnuts made from sugar, gynecologist transfats and anguish. Their product, while endurable to the palate, is not kind to the gut. Eat the recommended dozen of these malevolent pastries and see if I’m not right. Look down. There you go. Your helium stomach is cussing at you.
The franchise is “cult”; a brand that evokes unique passion among its customers. It is a thing that causes a person to dribble like, say, a slow teen at a Maroon 5 after-party. Ew. Like a crossdresser in GaGa’s undies drawer. See. That’s a nicer image.
I am suspicious of cults and “belonging” of all kinds. This is possibly due to the sheer number of organisations from which I have been ejected. Starting with a beginner’s ballet class, throughout which I preferred to pick my nose than fouetté, the habit of not belonging is lifelong.
But. The Krispy Kreme store is so fresh and honest looking. This is what a scientologist’s hospital must look like. It’s a deceptively clean-looking beacon and it always makes me feel like a moth.
I wanted to belong. I hovered.
“You’re never alone,” said the sign, “With a box of Krispy Kreme.”
I flew the fuck away.
Marketing, as we know, is a mucky business. The practise of tying social and emotional need to product is hardly new. But, as a former colleague of mine was wont to say, there’s a difference between scratching your bum and tearing your ass to shreds. You’re Never Alone With A Box of Krispy Kreme? You hardly need a flashlight for the subtext here. It says: Your Social Isolation Is Inevitable. You Might As Well Eat Shit. And choke to death on your own compulsion. No one will notice. You’re completely alone.
Drink the kool-aid. Eat the applesauce. Buy the app. No thank you, Jim, Marshall and Steve. I choose solitary nosepicking over bulkrate suicide. Although I wish you bon voyage. Pack some Heaven’s Gate Doughnuts for your journey. Give the multitouch mothership my best.
8 thoughts on “a doughnut where my kindness used to be”
What never ceases to amaze me is that people are lined up in the drive through of the KKK er Krispy Kreme in Narre Warren. Is life in the City of Casey so barren and devoid of entertainment that the only joy these people have is lining up, in their cars, not even walking into a store, for a donut?
It makes me point and laugh, and sigh.
What Poison, Our Cath, is Virgin? When they launched as the “fun” rave-in-the-sky carrier for Australia I was compelled to complain to federal aviation authorities. Honestly.
I take safety demonstrations very seriously and I would prefer that staff and corporation do similarly. At the point where we were alerted to our “whistles to attract attention” the wan little minxes of the cabin whispered the addendum, “of the opposite sex!”.
This irritated me for two obvious reasons. I shan’t expand but let us just say, if I’m going down, it’s not as a heterosexual.
I’m pleased to report that I located a by-law in the material governing safety demonstrations and Virgin were forced to quit this stupidity shortly after my flight.
I was recently on a flight and just before take-off a large woman stood up and offered her box of Krispy Kremes to everyone in economy-seated range with quite a few takers. In the de-humanising world of Virgin “Let’s be serious for a moment before we get back to the business of giggling about private gags over the speaker system because we’re so fucking great and lucky to be earning the minimum wage by working on this rich guy’s airline” it was the most sincere experience I’ve ever had.
wouldn’t catch me eating one in a new york minute – but they did the trick as a half decent example of some goodwill currency in the normally null and void world called virgin air.
I tried one once. I got diabetes :(
Seriously though I can’t eat them now, as I actually have diabetes and they would require me to fast for a week to expunge the built up sugar.
I really don’t understand why they are so popular though. Real doughnuts are semi sweet, cinamony and doughy – KK doughnuts are sickly sweet and full of air. I guess its similar to other things which come out of the US – like the concept of “celebrity”!?
Social exclusion troubles me. So do doughnuts.
it’s like they see us. they feel our pain, and then they step in to give us another shot. There, there, the doughnut won’t judge you, tell it all to the doughnut.
I’m positive, Dan, that the company is aware of our struggle. Why else would they have this “Just Give Up” message on their wall?
It’s odd. And distressing.
This has happened to me a lot: I see a krispy kreme store and immediately feel like a doughnut, I purchase a doughnut and immediately regret that first, disappointing taste. I bitterly eat the rest of the doughnut and try to ignore the growing sense of self loathing. This is the gift that krispy kreme gives to me.