When the Donuts are Gone, It’s Time to Go Home

Tell me there’s something better than a six-pack of fresh donuts heading into a three-day weekend. Two people, six donuts means each person gets a donut with a hot steaming cup of good old Eight O’clock coffee every morning for three days. The prospect of this is the essence of vacation itself.

To me, donuts represent the suspension of rules. My morning cereal gets shelved in favor of donuts and then bacon and eggs. It’s only for a few days, so what do I care? I’m walking and canoeing, working all this fat off, so why not? The donuts are fundamentally time-limited since, remember, there are only six of them and two of us.

But when the donuts are gone, it’s time to go home. Because if you don’t go home, you must buy more donuts and then the donuts aren’t the essence of vacation, they become a lifestyle. This is a particular issue for people who are at a stage of life where it is conceivable that they might go on permanent vacation and thus become part of Donut Nation.

The lure of Donut Nation is intense; Boomers’ crack, I tell you. Donuts and an Airstream trailer, double crack. We passed a little Airstream trailer on our way home from our 3-day weekend and, in an instant, I imagined a dozen donuts on the little fold-down table, my dogs lying in cozy, trailer-size beds, and my lap top with permanent Wi-Fi propped open waiting for me to pen great travel blogs, Travels with Bow Wow (or Minnie), you get the idea. My head whips around every time we pass someone in an RV on the freeway. Are they older than me or younger than me?

If they are younger, I embark on the argument with my husband that continued working is an injustice; other people are riding the rails, why aren’t we? When will we be free? When will we have unlimited donuts, a river of donuts, that’s what I ask.

He humors this discussion because he knows it’s half-hearted. Literally half-hearted. While half of me wants to live in flannel shirts and hiking boots and train to be a national park host, the other half wants to double my business revenues this year and pack in five more clients, make an impact, change the world, get rich, be famous, you know, not retire. I am conflicted and because my husband knows this, he usually just waits me out.

Today, though, he had a comeback. Basically, he said, “The donuts are only great because there are only six of them.” And along those lines, going to our vacation place on Lake Superior is only lovely because we have to leave and, in the leaving, we get to look forward to the next time we go. His point was that these things are rich because they have a beginning and end; without the end, what is special becomes mundane, regular, routine.

I pondered this as we drove along. Half of me agreeing with him, the other half lusting after the Airstream and a mound of donuts.

For now, but just for now, I fall on the side of going home when the donuts are gone. Donut Nation will have to go on without me for just a bit longer.