This morning, I woke up, and I did not want cold cereal. I did not want eggs, either. These are basically the two available options at my house on any given morning. But cereal felt too unsatisfying, and I didn’t want anything hot. I wanted something cold, sweet, and fruity, like a pastry or a turnover.
So I decided to walk to the gas station in town and pick up a couple of Hostess “apple pies.” Let’s be clear: they are not apple pies; they merely masquerade under that title. They are overprocessed packages of carcinogenic calories, but that is what I wanted.
But my mother suggested a quick trip to the bakery just a couple of miles out in the country. There I would be able to buy a bag of some doughnut-y thing for the same price, and it would basically be homemade! It would be far tastier, there would be even more of it, and it would probably be at least as healthy for me.
I grabbed my wallet, put on a baseball cap (it’s too early to bother getting rid of my unmanageable bed-head), and hopped in my car. I drove to the bakery. I saw by the sign that they weren’t open for another 5 minutes, so I listened to some music while I cracked open Studies in Theology by Loraine Boettner, skipped right to the back of the book and got started learning about atonement.
This was very strange of me. Though I often want food, I can be so lazy that I would rather go without food I don’t really want, even if it is available, but I never do the work to get the food I really do want if that food isn’t readily available. To actually do the work to get food that I want was, for me, a rare thing. (Granted, driving may not seem like a lot of work, but it can be unpleasant enough for me.) So here I am, in an oddly hyper-motivated state: I have my goal, and I am working towards it. I have taken unnecessary steps to get there. I mean, I don’t even need to have such a goal as this: I could be eating frosted mini-wheats right now, but I have chosen what was in some sense, the harder path for the greater pleasure.
Shortly thereafter, the bakery opened, and I walked to the door. On the door was a sign that listed their hours again, and it also listed what services are available each day. On Tuesdays (like today) they don’t have a full bakery. They do bulk, and have a limited bakery. I didn’t know how limited, and I had driven all the way out there, so I would have been stupid to walk away without seeing what was there.
I walked to the front desk, and asked the lady what was available today. She repeated what was on the sign, and said that they didn’t have what I was looking for. I was not going to get a fresh, homemade turnover this morning. It was not meant to be.
I got back in my car and drove to the gas station where I picked up two apple pies. They cost $1.50 apiece. It was a rip-off. I enjoyed eating them; it just wasn’t how I expected things to end.
I’m not sure how I know this, and maybe you don’t, since you live in R-Vegas and I do not, but the local IGA carries packages of doughnuts. After all, when the bakery makes the bulk doughnuts, where would they all go to? To the IGA, my friends, to the IGA. I only know this because I charged several packages to the AG-Tab when supervising the recycling center.