Out of the loop
Mar. 27th, 2008 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"A flute with no holes
Is not a flute.
A doughnut with no hole
is a danish."
- Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), quoting the Zen philosopher Basho, in Caddyshack
This morning I attended a meeting that featured one of those typical breakfast spreads -- muffins, bagels, danish and the like. I go to these meetings a couple times per month and I always complain about the absence of doughnuts from the breakfast platter.
Regular readers of this journal may remember that I am a big fan of doughnuts. Offhand I would say that they are my third-favorite dessert, behind ice cream and cookies but ahead of cake and pie. What gives doughnuts their extra edge is their versatility: they can actually be considered a breakfast food.
I don't know who it was or how they did it, convincing America that it was perfectly reasonable to start one's day with a glazed/powdered/cream-filled orgy of empty calories, but there should be a marketing lifetime achievement award named after that person. (And the inaugural winner ought to be the genius who came up with Cookie Crisp cereal.)
In the status/image/power-conscious world of Corporate America, however, doughnuts are seldom found at the morning meeting. You might say that doughnuts are considered a "street" breakfast, shamefully consumed in cold kitchens and on city sidewalks like crack cocaine, while the blue-noses brazenly sip at their Venti Mocha-Choco-Coca-Lattes. And don't even get me started on croissants.
So before the meeting, I made sure to get my morning sugar fix by eating two full bowls of Froot Loops (which used to -- I'm not sure now -- contain 100 percent RDA of Vitamin C; once when I was a kid I tried eating Froot Loops with orange juice instead of milk and my pee came out looking like Gatorade).
Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the meeting to see several fresh doughnuts on the tray, mingling with the bagels and the danish. And this was no barebones operation, either; this was a relatively swanky meeting room with clean upholstery, mahogany accents and exclusively bottled water. But I was so pre-sweetened by the Froot Loops that I was afraid to take advantage of my glazed temptress.
Alas, I was no match for her. I relented, and by the end of the meeting my body was vibrating so noticeably that I had to tell concerned onlookers that I was just cold.
In the future, it'll only be shredded wheat before meetings, just in case the doughnut is making a comeback. I can always keep a Twix in my pocket, just in case.
Is not a flute.
A doughnut with no hole
is a danish."
- Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), quoting the Zen philosopher Basho, in Caddyshack
This morning I attended a meeting that featured one of those typical breakfast spreads -- muffins, bagels, danish and the like. I go to these meetings a couple times per month and I always complain about the absence of doughnuts from the breakfast platter.
Regular readers of this journal may remember that I am a big fan of doughnuts. Offhand I would say that they are my third-favorite dessert, behind ice cream and cookies but ahead of cake and pie. What gives doughnuts their extra edge is their versatility: they can actually be considered a breakfast food.
I don't know who it was or how they did it, convincing America that it was perfectly reasonable to start one's day with a glazed/powdered/cream-filled orgy of empty calories, but there should be a marketing lifetime achievement award named after that person. (And the inaugural winner ought to be the genius who came up with Cookie Crisp cereal.)
In the status/image/power-conscious world of Corporate America, however, doughnuts are seldom found at the morning meeting. You might say that doughnuts are considered a "street" breakfast, shamefully consumed in cold kitchens and on city sidewalks like crack cocaine, while the blue-noses brazenly sip at their Venti Mocha-Choco-Coca-Lattes. And don't even get me started on croissants.
So before the meeting, I made sure to get my morning sugar fix by eating two full bowls of Froot Loops (which used to -- I'm not sure now -- contain 100 percent RDA of Vitamin C; once when I was a kid I tried eating Froot Loops with orange juice instead of milk and my pee came out looking like Gatorade).
Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the meeting to see several fresh doughnuts on the tray, mingling with the bagels and the danish. And this was no barebones operation, either; this was a relatively swanky meeting room with clean upholstery, mahogany accents and exclusively bottled water. But I was so pre-sweetened by the Froot Loops that I was afraid to take advantage of my glazed temptress.
Alas, I was no match for her. I relented, and by the end of the meeting my body was vibrating so noticeably that I had to tell concerned onlookers that I was just cold.
In the future, it'll only be shredded wheat before meetings, just in case the doughnut is making a comeback. I can always keep a Twix in my pocket, just in case.
