Autocorrect says "donut" is wrong but is fine with "donuts". Okay, how does it feel about doughnuts. . .oh, it's fine with it. Fuck it, I'm sticking with donut.

One of the few perks of my job is going to other offices and stealing their coffee and eating their donuts or cookies or whatnot for the small price of idle banter. This morning I used the phrase "I'll just take a donut for the road" (which is a very lame, banter-y thing to say and I felt a little embarrassed about how naturally it came from my mouth words) and unwittingly called up one of my pleasant childhood memories: the road donut.


I spent summers almost exactly like I spent the rest of the year when I was little because I was "home-schooled". In the summertime, however, Saturday mornings were often spent going yard-saling with Grandma Kooy and the cousins.

Driving back to Kooy's Irrigation, Grandma pulled over because she saw something lying on the shoulder of the highway that looked edible. I just want to pause for a second to allow everyone to ponder that last sentence while I point out that this actually happened and that not only was this not weird when we were kids, I still only think of this as weird when viewing it from a non-Kooy perspective. I was the nearest child to an accessible door so I was sent out to run back down the highway to find out what it was. Non-Kooy perspectives are weird because I am suddenly questioning the sanity and safety of my childhood as six kids under ten in a pickup with two seat belts doesn't seem too safe, not to mention having a five year old run down the side of a highway to pick up discarded donut for a snack. . . aw dammit, now I'm starting to think that eating things found on the side of freeways sounds like a bad idea too (especially when stated so direct like that). Damn you common sense, you are no longer allowed near my childhood.

Anyway, what I found was a giant donut. In my memory it is much larger than my head, maybe the size of my torso. It was mostly encased in saran wrap, sitting on a Styrofoam tray similar to the ones that I only ever see holding meat these days. The tear in its covering caused a couple of inches of donut to be soiled with road debris but Grandma cut that part out. And, since it was open to the elements it was a little stale, but Grandma had a solution to this as well: ten seconds in the microwave.

Grandma was able to cut the road donut up into enough pieces so that all of the cousins and all of the uncles who were working at the shop that day could partake in our fortuitous discovery. One of the older girls thought it was gross so I got two pieces. That was a good day.