Zombie donuts don’t hit this eater’s palate

I'm not conservative in too many things. Baseball, sometimes (as a National League supporter, I have a love-hate affair with the designated hitter). Hamburgers, usually (give me a basic cheeseburger, bit of mayo, lettuce and tomato). And donuts, it appears, mostly.

I came to that conclusion regarding donuts this morning after visiting Dawn of the Donut, the new bakery that is attracting crowds to its near-North Side location. You may have read Kaitlin Gillespie's Aug. 7 story in The Spokesman-Review.

Having made it a point to visit at least two other Spokane-area donut spots in the recent past — the Donut Parade and Mike's Old Fashioned Donuts — I felt obliged to visit this new zombie-themed donutery (just made that word up). I had to wait behind about 10 people, which gave me a chance to check out the zombie mannequin — I assumed it was a mannequin — standing in the corner. I reached for my Beretta F9 but then remembered: I don't own a Beretta F9.

When I finally arrived at the counter, I could see shelves of what I assume were freshly baked donuts. The bespectacled 20-something man then asked me what I wanted.

"Do you have anything in cinnamon"? I asked. He looked behind him. "Um, no," he said. "We don't."

I swallowed my disappointment. Mike's has the best cinnamon-sugar donuts in this part of the Milky Way galaxy. "OK, then," I replied. "I'll just have three old-fashioned donuts."

He hesitated. "Three old-fashioned?" he asked. "Yes," I replied, knowing they had those because I could see some. "OK," he said. He then turned, picked up a small pink to-go box and, after shuffling a couple of the shelves, packed three different type of donuts in the box.

When he returned to the counter, I said, "No, I meant old-fashioned," pointing the the plain, unadorned donuts that I could see sitting on one shelf. My comment seemed to confuse him a bit, which is a condition I often find myself in, so I quickly retreated. Knowing that I was just doing research, and that any kind of donut would do, I said, "No matter. These are fine."

So he gave me my order, I paid my $3 and I walked away.

I take full responsibility for the confusion. Why would I go to a donut place that embraces the notion of zombies — that, as Gillespie's story indicates, serves coffin-shaped donuts — and expect them to even understand the notion of a plain, unadorned, old-fashioned donut? It's likely that the server, who was both waiting on me and attending the drive-in window, just didn't understand what I wanted.

Whatever, I may come back. Or I may not. Either way, it won't be because of what I bought. All three — the old-fashioned slathered in glaze, the plain glaze and the maple glaze — certainly look scrumptious. It's just that, it appears, I have become a donut fogey.

Besides, the zombie in the corner looked like a switch-hitting DH.