Krispy Kreme

Cushy red stools line the counter at the front of the store. Those sitting there can look out the wide panes of glass into the snow-lined parking lot of a Wal-Mart. The cold wind taps at the window, edging into the cozy chain establishment. 

It isn't a quirky, "original" coffee shop. There is a coffee shop in Morgantown that has vibrant moose sponge-painted outside their bathrooms. Pictures and statues of these antlered creatures line the walls and the "specials" board.

I usually like those sorts of places best, the places with lots of "things". My fiance and I play this game every time we go into a new restaurant. It's called "Three Favorite Things in the Room." You can probably guess how to play. We ate at Red Robin last night. My three (from best to "eh"):

1. Photograph with a teapot building
2. Full-sized carousel horses
3. Red Robin canoe hanging from the ceiling

The Krispy Kreme doesn't have anything like that. It's the scent of sugary glaze over hot, fried doughnuts filling the room mixed with the ambiance of the two silent widescreens and the empty pleather couches.

I remember, as a little girl, my father swallowing doughnuts three or four at a time. He climbed beach houses with a bucket and soap for a living, cleansing the glass-lined mansions from sea salt. Those winters washing windows in the brittle wind cracked the skin on his hands, and, even now, with a desk job, his hands get chapped in winter.

As a child, I remember begging my mother to make us doughnuts. She did once, filling a wok with oil on a heated stove and pouring the batter through a funnel. I was disappointed. Where were the filling and icing and sprinkles? Who wants plain doughnuts? (Well, Dad wasn't picky.)