Darrell Huckaby: Can't a man get a hot Krispy Kreme donut in a pandemic?
They tell me that confession is good for the soul. I have one to make. Among my many weaknesses in life is the complete inability to drive past a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop when the hot sign is lit.
I know. I know. I should be stronger, but I am not. Any vehicle I am driving becomes bewitched when I see those illuminated letters and I have no more control over the steering wheel than Tom Crean has over the SEC basketball standings. I have to turn in, and even though I always have the best intentions to buy just two of the delectable pastries, I come away with a at least a dozen. Sometimes two. It never fails.
This malady of mine goes all the way back to childhood. I was introduced to Krispy Kreme at an early age. When I was a Cub Scout, we used to sell them to make money for the various projects our pack would undertake throughout the year. We took orders and then delivered the doughnuts when they "came in."
Honesty compels me to admit that I wasn’t aware that they didn’t just come in and that certain fathers drove to Ponce de Leon Avenue in the middle of the night to pick up the thousand or so boxes of treats our group would sell.
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Wayne Penn always won the price for top salesman - but his mama was the one who really sold them all. She took orders in the mill, which my mama said wasn’t fair. She made me go door to door and hit up all my neighbors. So, I would sell maybe a dozen boxes and bring in six dollars - they sold for 50 cents a dozen back then. Wayne’s mama would sell more than a hundred boxes and bring in more than 50 bucks.
As an adult who is a big fan of capitalism, I think Mrs. Penn had the right idea.
Later on, when I got a driver’s license and my friends and I could take off to Atlanta on a Friday or Saturday night, even though we weren’t supposed to, I discovered that I, too, could purchase Krispy Kreme doughnuts at the Ponce de Leon store - and I didn’t have to buy them in bulk. For the rest of my life, every trip to downtown Atlanta, be it for an evening at the Fox Theatre or just to stare at the hippies gathered on 14th street, included a stop at the Krispy Kreme store on Ponce. Some say that particular store is near the Clermont Lounge, but I wouldn’t know anything about that.
Once I married my lovely wife, Lisa, we started vacationing every summer at North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. There was a Krispy Kreme shop right around the corner from the oceanfront condo that we made our home away from home and I was a frequent visitor. A perfect beach morning, for me, was sitting on the balcony while everyone else was still asleep, drinking coffee, reading The Sun Times and scarfing down a half-dozen glazed.
For years I could buy a box on my way to the football games every fall from kids standing in the intersection of Highway 78 in Monroe or Walnut Grove. They were five dollars and not fifty cents.
About a year-and-a-half ago, Lisa and I moved to Oconee County. One of Lisa’s greatest fears about our move was that I would be living within 15 minutes of The Varsity and seven miles from the Krispy Kreme store on the Atlanta Highway. I don’t know how much Lisa paid the Gordys to close The Varsity as soon as we moved here, but I have worn the drive-through window at Krispy Kreme slap out.
Now I told you all of that to tell you this. Last Monday I had a distressing experiencing. I found myself driving down the Atlanta Highway and as I passed by Rafferty’s and then Pep Boys, I looked to my left, eyes straining to see if the hot sign was on. It wasn’t.
Didn’t matter. I pulled in anyway. I figured I would grab a couple of fresh glazed to eat in the car and maybe another dozen to take home. I pulled around to the drive-through and was shocked - shocked, I tell you - to learn that the store was closed.
Closed! It was almost noon and Krispy Kreme wasn’t open. And they weren’t going to be open until the end of the week. They couldn’t get enough help to open. Some of the workers had COVID-19 and they were shorthanded already.
Now, see here. This pandemic and all the foolishness that goes along with it has ceased to be a joke when a man can’t get a hot Krispy Kreme doughnut on demand.
Somebody must do something soon! Wayne Penn’s mama would be appalled.
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Hot Krispy Kreme donuts during the pandemic shouldn't be taken for granted
