Krispy Kreme Temporarily Unavailable

In the Sunday Pensacola News Journal there was an article about our Krispy Kreme Donuts. It seems the building that has been at the same spot for 40 something years is going to be razed and a brand spanking new building will be there. A bigger and better place for cooking up those one-of-a-kind donuts that you just can't get enough of once you've tried them.

The article was really great, describing exactly how I feel about these tasty treats. I'm just not a good writer, so I'll let him describe my feelings exactly!

Don't Bogart that donut, hand it over to me by Carl Wernicke

I fear an ominous rumor as much as anyone -- especially when it threatens our very way of life.

So rumblings that the Krispy Kreme outlet on Ninth Avenue in Pensacola is never going to reopen after its closing for renovation have to be taken seriously.

After all, the phrase "Closed for remodeling" has been the epitaph for more businesses than I can count. It is far more deadly than the dreaded "vote of confidence" coaches of failing teams get from management just before they are fired (or go ask Don Rusmfeld, who might have gotten the quickest post-vote-of-confidence boot in history).

The company's stock has been pummeled, and falling sales of Krispy Kreme's coma-inducing sugar bombs have been blamed on the erroneous belief that if you eat only healthy foods, you will never die.

Of course, that fits in with today's "I want it now, and I want it all" mentality, but not even the fitness-obsessed baby boomers -- the most spoiled generation in history (unless you count their kids) -- will be able to escape the final breakdown.

Company officials counter the rumors with plans not for a renovation, but a complete tear-down and rebuild, with a reopening scheduled in four short months.

OK.

But it had better happen, that's all I can say.

I was first acquainted with Kripsy Kreme's famous glazed doughnuts as a Boy Scout. We bought them by the boxed dozen for a quarter, and raised money by selling them for 50 cents.

It was never that hard selling the doughnuts. I pitied the kids who had to hawk magazine subscriptions or weird stuff from catalogues. I once sold my grandmother these clever little colored plastic balls filled with water; you'd freeze them for use in place of ice cubes, and give your next party that festive air so lacking in more humdrum homes. The first time she did, several people got sick when the balls leaked tainted water into the drinks.

She demanded her money back, which was a setback to a little kid, even if the balls were a disappointment. Of course, today her guests would probably sue me.

I went back to selling Kripsy Kremes, which I knew people really wanted.

And why not? In those days, it was a no-brainer: a dozen fresh sugar bombs delivered to your door on Saturday, sometimes still warm, for 50 cents.

Let's eat two, as Ernie Banks used to say.

Naturally, we'd order some doughnuts for ourselves (and I'm talking glazed -- any other doughnut, even a Krispy Kreme, was an affectation; don't even talk to me about cake doughnuts, which sit as heavily on a Southerner's stomach as the defeat at Gettysburg, leaving no room for fried chicken).

Anyway, you'd dig into the box and pull out a couple of glazed delights -- if still warm, they threatened to melt on your fingers and pull apart as you drew them out. You'd already have a big glass of cold milk poured, and the doughnut would simply dissolve in your mouth; you didn't even have to chew a hot one.

Within minutes, the world would haze over and something would happen to your body. Your brain would start humming, your heartbeat quicken ... and everything and everyone else would slow down. The only way for them to catch up was to eat a couple themselves and dose their own bloodstream with the potent chemical load baked into every round little food-nuke. (Is a Krispy Kreme actually food? I don't know, and don't care.)

I do know that if I want to be the most popular guy in the newsroom I stop by the Krispy Kreme, stand in line with the other sleepyheads, and order several dozen "hot doughnuts now" to go.

Once in the newsroom, I put out an "all" message: Doughnuts in the coffee room.

Soon, there's nothing but a couple of empty boxes, with latecomers reduced to shamelessly scraping the congealed sugar off the cardboard like some desperate junkie working the bottom of his stash.

What I'm saying here is I had better not see a fried chicken place or convenience store rise up where Krispy Kreme now sits. The world is getting crazier, and I feel the need coming on to slow it down.