Category Archives: Muddled Musings

America Runs on Glurpin’

 

http://childpsychiatryassociates.com/?p=2787 After more than 15 years, I went into a Dunkin’ Donuts. Or, more accurately, acquiesced to go after a friend threatened driving into a tree if we did not stop there for dessert.

It’s not that I don’t like Dunkin,’ or any other food in donut form. To the contrary, I think donuts should be on the USDA’s list of daily recommended supplements. I just have an odd memory of the place.

Now, Dunkin’ is nothing like I remember. It was once an unofficial police precinct, known for its sugar, lard and whatever glurp they funnel into their Boston Kremes. Now, it more resembles a Starbucks on a confectioner’s high.

Dark wood interiors. Flat screen TVs. WiFi. Smells more like coffee than donut holes, whatever the hell those were. Even the bag has changed, into a recyclable sack of subtler fonts and hues. newbag A far cry from the good old poisonous plastic clutch, emblazoned with neon lettering that screamed where you just dined. oldbagTo go there meant taking the Culinary Walk of Shame.

I was taking one more than 15 years ago, when I lived in DC.

D.C. a deceptive place. The elbow of the nation’s saluting arm it was designed by Pierre L’Enfant, and the Capitol neighborhood itself is spectacular, as artistic a city as Paris.

capitol

Look deeper, though, and you’ll see that poverty concerns far outweigh political ones, that the homeless seem to outnumber the homes. I once watched a drunken drifter roll out from under my Jeep one afternoon. He was using it for shade, sleeping. He would have been human jelly  had I not been so anal about letting the engine warm up.

I came upon another homeless denizen 15 years ago, running home before an early-morning  tennis game with Bill. scottnbill

She looked to be at least 50, though she may have been 16; like living in the sun, living on asphalt seems to weather skin mercilessly. She called out as I was grabbing the keys to the entrance of my apartment building, in downtown Adams Morgan, a catch basin for the city’s human flotsam.

“Hey, donut boy!” she shouts, spotting the bag a mile off. “Got any spare change?”

When approached by the homeless, I usually make eye contact and politely say no (except on Christmas morning). Today, however, I actually had dumped the few coins into whatever charity bin was on the counter, even though I suspect Dunkin‘ employees just emptied it into the register. Or gave it to the cops for protection.

“No, sorry,” I respond.

“Not even a quarter?” she asks. following me up the footpath to the entrance. “Come one, one quarter.”

“Sorry.”

Lady must have been trying out a new sales technique, one that employed doubt.

“How about a dime?” she says, about 10 feet behind now. “Ten cents?”

“I don’t have any change, sorry.”

I open the front door, pass through the second set of doors. I hear she must have wedged her foot before the front door  could click shut, because it did not. I heard he entryway doors open.

“How about a nickel?! You saying you don’t have a nickel?!”

I don’t respond, just walk to my door, unlocked it, get stupidly confident.

“One penny??!!!” She is yelling now. “You don’t have one cent on you??!!”

Living room a few strides away, I turn, face her, get growly. “Lady, I don’t have one goddamned penny on me!” I bark, and slam the door.

About an hour later, running late to meet Bill. I open the door, and there’s…glurp. Lady left a full loogie on my front door, big and beaming as a Christmas wreath.

I’ve never been a big fan of Starbucks, or many places that engage in chic gouging (‘cept Harley). But I gotta say: I like the Dunkin makeover. Seems it would draw less of that haughty loogie crowd.

 

 

 

The River Card, Part II

A buddy of mine has a daughter, now about five. The first newborn I’d ever held, Audrey was.

Now, she is razor sharp, like her moms n’ pops. I visited them recently, impromptu pizza. Usually, we do magic together, a vanishing act where she materializes from the ether.

anthony

“Do you want to do the magic trick?” Audrey whispers in my ear.

“You know, never show a trick twice,” I tell her. “They’ll figure it out.”

“Do you have more magic?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I respond. “Do you have cards?” A week ago, I never would have asked this of a five-year-old. But mom just told me that my nephew, Raphael, had learned cards. And, apparently, a victory pose when he holds the inside straight.

Audrey says she does, but they’re Disney cards, with princesses and ogres and elves and fairies. Even better, I say. I examine them, ask if she knows what the “K” card means.

“King,” she says. And I see mom was right; that is the age kids get the card concept. Audrey knows all the face cards, that a Queen trumps a Jack, any day. I show her a trick, which falls flat like weekend soda. There’s no hiding it in a kid’s face, that ‘uh-huh’ shrug.

“Know any others?” she asks. No way I win this room, I deduce.

“Why don’t I show you a card game?” I ask. “Do you know how to play War?” She comes up to table, for the basic instructions: one card each, bigger card wins both.

Then she asks something that makes me understand how kids magic is probably way too simple-minded, like its practitioners.

“What are the Aces worth?” she says. I suggest 11, the biggest card.

“Isn’t it sometimes a 1?” she presses, already skeptical after my failed illusion.

“It is,” I answer, surprised at the question. “We can make it either. Why don’t we say 11?”

“What about the Joker?”

I’m dumbfounded at the grasp being flexed in front of me. “Well, why don’t we make the Joker worth 1, since the Ace is worth 11?”

She agrees, and we begin the game. By the end of the first deck, she has the concept down. By the second, she takes over dealing. By the third, she is sneaking glances under the cards before deciding who gets which. I nearly spit soda through my nose in laughter as she strains, literally from the corner of her pond-sized eyes, to get an edge — particularly when she draws the useless goddamned Jokers, which always seem to land her side.

“Want another?” I ask, though I can sense her mounting boredom.

“No, you can take them,” she says. “But next time, let’s make the Jokers bigger than the Aces.”

Now that, I realized, is magic.