11:03 a.m. - 2005-08-11
give that lady a tip
So the trip to Chuck E. Cheese was a relative success. I went and picked Alison up from her house where her grandma who watches her and her triplet siblings who are 7 months old were occupying the living room with the sound of low-volume TV and baby gurgles. They are really adorable when they are not screaming their heads off. The babies, not the grandma...she neither screams her head off nor is what I would classify as "adorable" per se...she is more standard grandma-looking and standard grandma-nice.
I only have time to give you the pre-Chuck E. Cheese story at the moment....more later on the land of tokens and tickets, I promise.
As we were driving toward my parents' house, Alison announces she is hungry. Doing some quick math, I realize she'd better eat something because Kevin isn't due to meet us for an hour, plus twenty travel minutes to our destination, and you just go ahead and TRY to get a five year old to sit down and eat BEFORE the game playing commences. We make a U-turn and pull into Dunkin Donuts.
"Ice cream?" she asks hopefully. Baskin Robins and Dunkin Donuts are one in the same around here. I nix the ice cream idea and give her some choices that I think are likely to tide her over for the next two hours and maybe not start the sugar high quite so early. Muffin? I suggest. Nope. Bagel? I say as though it's something truly exciting. Nah. Donut? I sigh. Yeah!
Fine. A donut isn't that bad, right?
Hand in hand we cross the parking lot and enter the world where chocolate chip scoops and donut holes meet...where Boston Cream and Cappucino Blasts collide. A place with delicious (for the locale) coffee and banana splits reside peacefully, side by side. What a concept.
However, Dunkin Donuts has a design flaw. Let me set the scene.
"What kind of donut do you want?" I ask. She shrugs. After a moment of fruitless question asking "Sprinkles? Icing?" I pick her up and the pointing begins. We are held back, away from the donut display racks by a counter and five feet of space. Trying to determine which donut a kindergardener (who is not yet a donut term expert) is pointing at is like playing $100,000.00 Pyramid with a blind, native African who speaks Swahili in an obscure dialect.
The pink one?
More pointing.
The Chocolate one? I mean, the brown one? With the frosting? I mean icing? Is that it? The long one or the round one?
After about ten minutes of this (accompanied by an endlessly patient Dunkin employee standing by at the ready with the paper take-out bag) I figure out that Alison is not actually pointing at actual donuts. She is pointing to a picture. A large display picture right above the donut trays. It is a picture of a sesame seed bagel.
"Alison, that's a bagel. Do you want a bagel?"
"No...the one with the white sugar on it."
"Alison, that's a sesame seed bagel."
"It has whipped cream in the middle. I want that."
"NO, that is cream cheese and that is a bagel. You can have a bagel if you want, but I don't think you do."
"That one...want that one." (Pointing exasperatedly at the advertisement for a bagel and small coffee for $1.99)
I'm at a loss. If I get her the bagel she will HATE it and if I don't she will hate ME.
I look helplessly at the Donut Lady. She smiles and picks out a chocolate frosted pink donut with rainbow sprinkles. "How about this one??" she says brightly.
I look down at Alison....Giant smile. Huge eyes. Head slowly nodding...even a giggle.
Thank you Donut Fairy of North Versailles.
