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After work today, I went to pick up a few groceries for dinner at a market not far from my home.

Just enough for supper, really… I wasn’t in the mood for a big grocery excursion.

But somehow, in the midst of the healthy, meaningful items in my basket, a box of Donettes appeared.

You know… Donettes. Tiny, icing sugar-coated cake donuts. Approximately 3,948 calories per bite.

They are not a normal weakness for me, I have to say. If I want junk, I’ll normally pick up a bag of Miss Vickie’s Lime and Pepper Chips and call it a day. And if I REALLY want to go hardcore, it’s all about the Ben and Jerry’s.

Donettes are things of my childhood, things my dad would bring home after work. Treats in the regular groceries, scarfed before dinner.

That’s a nice memory.

And Donettes are nice things. Just these little bites of sweetness and air. Mmm!

But really? Each one lodges in your heart for, like, twenty years.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t ABSOLUTE CRACK sometimes.

So. Donettes.

On special, apparently, but I knew that was no excuse as I walked out the door with them. Still, the trip down the hill to my home was basically an effort not to rip the bag open and CONSUME EVERY LAST ONE right then and there.

And two blocks before I was safely in my front door, I caved.

I continued to walk confidently down the sidewalk, all Vancouver bounce and health, but my hand was doing a violent rhumba within the thin plastic walls that held my desired object.

And then… AH!

One was loosed, and just as I went to shove it in my mouth WITH ALL THE FERVOR OF A SPY EATING THE MICROFILM, I noticed there was a man about to pass me on the sidewalk.

An attractive man.

An attractive man in those nerdy-hipster glasses and tousled hair and a witty t-shirt and sneakers and DAMMIT I didn’t want to like him in all his cliche Threadless glory but he had those rosy rugby player cheeks and I WAS SOLD.

Oh dear.

And me with a tiny handful of lard.

Not that I am adverse to eating in front of men, OH NO… not one of THOSE girls, no way. Pass the wings, Chico. AND THE BLUE CHEESE DIP.

But Donettes, unless you eat them in a single bite, have a special power. A power I had no desire to demonstrate for this man.

What power is this, you say?

They possess the power to explode all over you with a mushroom cloud of sugary goodness — a mushroom cloud all the MORE HEINOUS if you are wearing a black shirt.

Which I was.

Pulling the Donette back away from my lips at that point would have made it seem like I was ASHAMED of the Donette, though… like I was sneak-eating on the streets, hiding my addiction to baked goods beneath a THIN LAYER OF CIVILITY, waiting to crawl into an alley to shoot up with Capri Sun.

But I couldn’t shove the damn thing in my mouth, either. Because that smacked of Trilbyville Donette Eating Contest County Champ 1993, and that wasn’t really the vibe I wanted to put out there for the oncoming hottie.

So I tried for the nibble.

The NIBBLE OF DOOM.

Because as soon as my lips touched the Donette and I bared my teeth to partake, I inhaled some of the magical coating. And this, in turn, caused an immediate reaction in my nose. As my mouth opened, so did my sinuses, and all at once I felt my head explode.

I sneezed.

HARD.

My shirt looked like the opening credits of Star Wars.

Like the windshield while driving through THE GREATEST BLIZZARD OF ALL TIME.

Like the black yet white-flecked pillowcase of a man SADLY AND AWKWARDLY afflicted with dandruff.

I had no choice but to do what I did next.

In an effort to minimize the damage, I shoved the ENTIRE spittle-laden Donette in my mouth.

And then the moment was lost.

Where ONE SECOND BEFORE I’d been a normal girl in black, suddenly I was a dusty, puffy-cheeked GIT with watery eyes and a stricken expression.

(insert sound of my pride withering like an unwatered ficus)

And my hipster Adonis?

He glanced at me in my state of disarray, grimaced slightly, and said five horrible words:

“Gotta love them donuts, hey?”

DONETTES, bitch.

Someone get me a kleenex.

And another shirt.

And a GLASS OF MILK, STAT.