Happy Donuts
Strange as it may seem, I find that a two-cup coffeemaker has significantly altered my everyday life. It all started quite innocuously, when I carelessly cracked my travel mug and needed a new one. Yes, I’m the guy who has to have coffee on the way to work, whether traveling by train or car. I need a dose for the duration of the commute and then my mug and I would hit the donut shop near my job for a refill before the day begins in earnest.
The coffee is frankly mediocre, but far cheaper than Starbucks. It’s also a nice, family-run operation. The mom tends the counter alternately with the three sons I have watched grow up and slowly edge themselves away over the past decade. The eldest and only daughter went before them all and has since returned to the greasy, sugary fold. They all know what I do for a living and come from the kind of culture where “Teacher” is still pronounced with the capitalization audibly emphasized. They treat me very well and I’m not afraid to admit I relish the respect of their attention.
They’ve raised the prices several times over the years, but the change I get back always lingers around the old amount for a while thereafter; at this point, I think I’m paying 2009 rates for their hazelnut blend, slightly burnt to match the bran muffins. It’s nice to feel like a “regular” somewhere other than a bar. It’s a simple acknowledgement of the continued value of my existence, even if it’s based in the inanity of customer service. Did I mention that the daughter is a hottie only slightly too young for me? Oh, yes.
She is the one who says I’m “so green” for refilling a mug instead of taking yet another paper cup, cardboard heat sleeve, and plastic lid. I noticed that she took care in articulating each item several times in the first months after her return to the family business. She had studied Accounting out of state and will probably do the books here even after she’s married off, like her mother so badly wants. We have the same conversation pretty much every time she’s behind the counter.
She reminds me that my mug is still a bit of an anomaly around here. The word “anomaly” itself sounds a bit the anomaly here, too. I think she drops big words to tell me subtly that she’s been places, seen the world outside. That she’s educated, too, and it somehow matters to her that I know it. Remember, this ain’t Starbucks or Peet’s with aloof baristas and four-syllable concoctions.
It’s an open twenty-four hours throwback, serving a working-class clientele to whom higher education and/or saving the planet aren’t exactly paramount amongst daily concerns. Also, it simply gives us something to talk about. A cover for a cute, flirty subtext that will never go anywhere and we both know it. She probably does it with a lot of customers, but it’s clearly fun for both of us, on several levels. It’s sweet and harmless, but in its own way sort of comfortable and sustaining. Especially when it’s interwoven with the “Hi, Teach,” I get from her rough and ready brothers and the “Straighten your collar; s’crooked,” Mother hens me with when I need it.
It even feels kind of nice to be gently “tsk-tsked” like that myself every now and then, seeing as how I pretty much do it to other people for a living. And please let me climb on my soapbox momentarily to remind you that it remains a living that doesn’t pay very god-damned much. So, in my seemingly never-ending quest to save money, a travel mug that serves as part of a personal coffeemaker seemed like a great idea when I bought it. Because, really, it just is.
I can fill up from my home pot and then make a fresh refill at work. It saves me the twelve to fifteen dollars per week I’d usually spend at Happy Donuts. That doesn’t sound like much, but in my world, it adds up to another chapter book for my kid, another pair of work pants for me with pockets itching for the extra small change. So, I bought it as a practical, back to school gift to myself. It was even on sale and in the two weeks since I’ve been using it, the money saved has effectively paid it off. Plus, there’s no pot to wash or break, it uses only two scoops a day, and my classroom smells all warm and earthy now. Life improved by technology, indeed.
It even saves me real time. I have back the extra twenty minutes a typical donut shop run has cost me nearly every day for years. I’m more relaxed going to work now. I’m able to rush my kid a little less in the mornings. The classroom coffeemaker is a good choice that I should have made years ago. But, there’s seemingly a small, altogether hidden cost only now becoming apparent.
There’s a piece of my day missing. A piece that I maybe didn’t realize I liked so much. I’m not a Happy Donuts “regular” any more. Since I don’t go to bars much these days, I’m not really a regular patron anywhere, other than the big-box purgatory that is Target. Maybe I’m finally growing into a prudent consumer. Yet, there’s no more, “Hi, Teach,” moment. No more free bear claws when Tiger Mom isn’t around. That tiny dose of socialization, no matter how specious or even largely artificial it may have been, was the real “happy” in Happy Donuts.
