Donuts!

Let me begin by saying how much I love donuts. I love donuts. Love them. Love them more than “Arrested Development.” More than Tyler Hansbrough. More than oxygen. If the devil offered me a donut for my soul I would say, not “Get thee behind me, Satan!” but “With or without sprinkles?” I will go to any lengths to get a good donut. Murder is a step too far, I suppose, but anything else goes, including most major and minor felonies.

North Carolina is not noted for its donuts. You have two choices: Dunkin’ Donuts or Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme is the local, homegrown product; people call you a traitor if you pick Dunkin’ Donuts. They call you a “Yankee” and pelt you with crullers. Yet I never really got a taste for Krispy Kreme. Their “Original Glazed” always tasted a little too light and airy. Plus, the glaze was a bit slimy. It made your hands stick together like some kind of mutant flipper.

Things are different in the O.C. No Dunkin’ Donuts; that’s a northeastern thing. Krispy Kreme? People out here have never heard the words. I was on my own. I had gotten a tip, though, that southern California has a great donut culture. It seems that Cambodians run the donut racket around here. And so I set off this morning in search of the nearest Cambodian-owned-and-operated donutery.

Thanks to the internet, I had found a place nearby called “Miss Donut and Bakery.” Who is Miss? Why does she run a donut shop? These questions, alas, remain unanswered. The place was within walking distance, but that’s a relative term in south California. To put it in Zen terms: everything is distant, nothing is close. It’s like a claustrophobic laid out the city plans.

Getting to the donut shop involved crossing several boulevards, always a dicey proposition. As usual, I made sure to update my will and testament before leaving the dorm. Don’t want to take any chances. I made it across the first three unscathed. At the fourth—State College Boulevard—I found safety crossing with a pair of old guys. I figured that the drivers would target them first.

The next half-hour passed pretty uneventfully. I walked, and walked, and walked and walked, then to change the pace I walked a little more. I followed that up with some walking. Then, to cool down, I did a little more walking. Then the cycle started over. I don’t know how Cal State Fullerton students get around if they don’t own a car. They must all have calf muscles the size of Christmas hams.

The scenery wasn’t too bad, though. A bunch of little neighborhoods sprawled out to my right. Most of them lay sheltered behind a series of big white walls. I felt like I was walking past a row of POW camps. I kept expecting to see a bag come flying over one of the walls, followed by a dirty guy in a ragged prisoner’s uniform. Now and then I crossed over a suburban side street. I could see little one-level houses painted, not in the usual O.C. pink-and-yellow pattern, but in more subdued blues and whites.

On the left, I saw Cal State Fullerton. God damn, but that’s a big campus. And it’s getting bigger. I passed by what must have been the mother of all parking garages. You could house an entire Panzer division in that thing. It stood at least five or six stories tall and covered an entire block. How many cars could it fit? 10,000? 20,000? A million? Maybe Gov. Schwarzenegger plans to ease the budget crisis by closing every state school except CSUF. That’s why they need so many parking spots.

As I walked, I started to think. It’s a thing I do sometimes when the mood strikes. We all know that young people want to live in NYC, right? No college students plans to go to Des Moines or Jacksonville after they graduate; they all dream about the Big Apple. Why is that? Maybe the culture; maybe the nightlife; maybe the romance of Gotham. I think it’s because you can walk most places in Manhattan. You don’t need to worry about a car. College students would live in Upper Cow’s Butt, Mississippi, if everything there was within walking distance.

After half an hour I finally arrived back in civilization, “civilization” being represented by KFC and Blockbuster. It’s not much of a civilization, but it’ll do. I found Miss Donut & Bakery in a little shopping center, right next to the tattoo parlor. I passed a guy with an American flag tattooed on the back of his neck. How, I ask, can you get more patriotic than that? Maybe if he had a screaming eagle tattooed on his forehead, I suppose.

Miss Donut & Bakery delivered on its name. I went there; I bought donuts; I went home and ate said donuts. Of course, I had to dither for a couple of minutes before finally picking out my donuts. They had a big display case overflowing with every type of donut imaginable. God, was it beautiful. I spent five minutes staring at a tray of jumbo long johns. In the process, I think I committed the cardinal sins of both gluttony and lust.

I consider the mission a success. I walked out of the bakery carrying a pair of chocolate donuts with chocolate frosting. Nothing fancy; just pure deliciousness. I managed to resist temptation all the way back to the dorm. After that, though, all bets were off. The donuts vanished a few minutes after I got home. Ah, donuts. Truly the food of the gods.