More Donuts

After a relaxing if unexceptional weekend milling about central Indiana, we made our way downtown yesterday afternoon for a stroll with Grant in the nice weather. Our first stop was at Circle Centre mall which proved relatively uneventful. As we passed through the food court, Erin said "Oooh...They're getting a Taco Bell!" which pretty well sums up the excitement awaiting one at Circle Centre.

Afterwards we took a stroll around Monument Circle and decided to have an early dinner at P.F. Chang's. (What else would one awaiting a two week stay in China want besides some California-fied Chinese food?) As we were seated, Erin remarked that the last time she ate at P.F. Chang's, she received food poisoning. Lovely, eh? I remember the event very clearly, as it was shortly after we started "hanging around" (we never dated, for those of you who know us...at least we didn't according to Erin).

On that fateful day, we had childcare that day at church, and we were both stationed in the nursery. Erin's stomach was not feeling well when we got to church, and about half way through the service, Erin tossed some poor baby like she was in a baby shot put competition into a crib. She ran outside and started what turned out to be a day's worth of eliminating her last evening's meal from P.F. Chang's. In an effort to be chivalrous, I took her back to her apartment and tried to comfort her, bringing her wet washclothes, glasses of water, etc. She was extremely ill, and little did she know at the time that I avoid sick people at all costs, so for me to stick around and voluntarily expose myself to her was an act of unparalleled devotion.

As she tells the story, she couldn't get me to leave and I essentially stalked her in her sick state. That's right, hon. I was waiting for just the right chance between wretches to make my move. Sheesh...A fella can't get a break.

Anyway, our meal last night at P.F. Chang's has not, thus far, produced such results. It did become traumatic about 15 minutes in, as Grant decided he'd had enough missed naps and began sort of randomly tossing objects about the restaurant. He didn't scream. He didn't cry. He just tossed a pacifier here, a stuffed dog there. Luckily nobody else eats at 4 pm at P.F. Chang's, so we were able to crawl around the floor retrieving things without anyone else noticing.

On our way home, we joked about taking 16th Street home on the off chance that Long's Bakery would be open. Now I realize that faithful readers think I'm on a diet, but such an ordeal is always paused in the event that I pass Long's. Long's has, quite simply, the finest donuts (or "do-nuts" as the sign advertises) available anywhere in the world. (And I include Dunkin' Donuts in this comparison, despite my fawning in Friday's post.) These little old ladies put Krispy Kreme to shame. We once took our elementary school aged niece to Long's, and after her first donut while riding home, I turned around and asked her if she wanted another. Her response says it all. "Keep 'em comin'."

Now Long's does have its quirks, and since they happened to be open on Sunday at 5:30pm, I was able to stop for my weekend dose of icing. Their first quirk are the hours. They seem to be open randomly. Sometimes in the middle of the night. Sometimes on Sundays. I'm sure they have posted hours, but I haven't been able to sense any sort of pattern.

Their second quirk is that they have at least four signs within the shop advertising the fact that they take nothing other than cold, hard American cash. One says, "We are not set up to take credit cards or debit cards." Another says, "No personal checks will be accepted." Yet another says, "We accept cash." All of these appear to be made at the same time. They use the same block, all capital lettering, and all appear on little pieces of white cardboard. Methinks some signage consolidation should have been considered. They also have a sign of similar construction announcing, and I quote, "Anyone caught yellin or cussin an employee will not be served." Cheery.

The final quirk is that the kindly, little old ladies are not always exceptionally friendly. First off, they have a system to their line that you dare not tamper with. I once ordered my donuts and watched the lady put all of my goods into an anonymous white box at the end of the counter where stacked were a dozen other such boxes. As I got to the cash register, I thought I was about to receive the wrong box, so I alerted the cashier who began checking the box I THOUGHT was mine. Upon discovering that their system had actually worked correctly, and I had sent her on a sort of donut snipe hunt, she petitioned me to "just let us do our job." Ouch.

The other key mistake to make in line at Long's is to get all the way to the cash register, apparently blinded by the sugar and donut smell, and offer up a credit card. This results in an old lady doing a dance to point out all the aforementioned signage before snapping your donuts back up and pointing you to the gas station across the street for an ATM. This is a freshman error and will result in severely delayed fried dough gratification.

As I placed my order yesterday, I took note of the fact that at 5:30pm on a Sunday, Long's was packed. I had to wait several minutes to get to the counter. The other thing I noticed was that Long's donuts appear to unify people over class, race, and age boundaries. Everyone in line was discussing their favorite Long's product with each other. An old white guy was discussing filled long johns with a middle aged black woman, while another toothless white dude inquired of the rest of the line as to the merits of the cinammon fried donuts. It was a beautiful thing. We need to be dropping sacks of Long's over the middle east. I'm quite sure mililtants would stop blowing themselves up once bloated on the deep fried, cream filled goodness which is a Long's filled donut or the sticky sweetness of a Long's apple fritter.

Erin and I ingested our donuts, as well as a couple of "test" brownies from Long's, on our way home. Erin took note of my adherence to the diet, but she understood that there are some points in life where you just have to live it up.