A ghastly void...

A sugary free dozen donuts. That's how they got me.

Picture, if you will, a bleak, chilly Thursday night; workers at a Sandy, Utah Krispy Kreme are scurrying like worker ants around rolling carts upon carts chock full of the trademark treats and loading them onto trucks. One short, goateed recent hire is hefting boxes almost as big as he is onto a large dolly. In the midst of it all a rather lost, disconsolate spirit is hovering, already anxiously anticipating the end of the day's work.

The night yawned across intermittent instructions on how to fill out a day's report, how to unbuckle the menacing clasp securing the tall donut carts in the back of the truck, how not to drive all the way back to Sandy to pick up a neglected order/item. The supervisor training us, we'll call L, was a no-nonsense, rustic 26 year-old with child-support payments. He and "Goatee" seemed comfortable enough rolling around in the behemoth with the stock of fresh donuts in its belly. I could only look longingly out the windows at darkness.

If Utah in the daytime is boring (as some have insisted) then it's a ghastly void of sensory experience in the bleakest hours of night. Granted, I don't mind the night so much, but I can't imagine being alone in it with nothing more to do than to regularly hop in and out of the cab to open the back, pull out the loading "plank," roll out the cart, take it into a store, etc., etc., etc.

Granted, to some it may seem like just another job; to me it was a harrowing venture into the true meaning of "graveyard shift." (Try visiting Smith's at 3:30 a.m. and look for a beaming smile. Go on, I dare ya!)

At any rate, my apologies and condolences to you who may have been prematurely promised a bundle of donuts...