Pulling up to the Krispy Kreme drive-through, Zach Randolph knew exactly what his order would be: “A dozen dozens of your original glazed, please.”
Proceeding to the pickup window, Zach made it clear to the disinterested worker that the donuts were not all for himself – they were in fact for him and his teammates. He handed over the money and received in return a large stack of boxes, each containing twelve warm morsels of heaven. Putting these boxes on the passenger seat of his SUV, he pulled back onto the highway for the thirty-minute commute to the practice facility.
The smell emanating from the boxes was so enticing that Zach couldn’t help but reach over and help himself to one – just one – donut. Savoring the sugary, fluffy, fatty confection, it was gone in three bites.
The donut had been delicious, but it had done nothing to take the edge off his hunger. He thought about stopping at a McDonalds for a much-needed meat infusion, but looking at the dash, saw that he was already running late. His stomach would have to deal with it.
Two minutes later, his stomach could no longer deal with it. The acid-filled sac residing in his belly demanded sustenance. Taking a guilty look at the still-open box, Zach figured that ten of those donuts were rightfully his, so what was the harm in eating them before he got to the team meeting? This rationale was all that was necessary for him to devour one of the twelve boxes, but even after ingesting the large amount of baked goods, there was still that gnawing feeling in his gut.
There was a Dunkin Donuts just a few minutes from the facility. The guys preferred Krispy Kreme, but he could tell them that the Krispy Kreme had run out of donuts, so he needed to supplement their breakfast with inferior Dunkin Donuts donuts. Quickly, another three boxes of donuts disappeared into the bottomless abyss of his mouth. Then, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth.
Before Zach realized what was happening, all the rest of the donuts had been consumed as well, and he was just pulling into the parking lot of the practice facility. His sugar-addled brain could not recall anything from the last ten minutes, but his frosting-covered face and crumb-covered steering wheel told the whole sad story.
There was no time to get more donuts. He was five minutes late already. Closing up the boxes and stacking them up, he pretended nothing was wrong as he walked into the swank conference room. “Donuts are here!” he announced. There were murmurs of “about damn time” and “I’m starving”.
Opening the first two boxes, Zach pretended to be surprised when they contained no donuts. “Oh my god! They gave me a bunch of empty boxes! Pricks!” he yelled, trying to sound properly indignant.
“Zach, you fatty, you ate all the donuts again, didn’t you?” Mike Conley chastised. “I bet you did, you fat sack of crap.”
“No guys, I swear, I didn’t even realize!” Zach protested. When Mike walked over, looked in the boxes, and saw the crumby remnants of the donuts now in Zach’s stomach, he just shook his head.
“Damn it Zach.”