Krispy Kreme Konundrum
Human nature is so predictable. But there is a danger in assuming its predictability. Sometimes, when you think you know how someone is going to behave, you might just get more than a little surprise.
We were ‘old’ friends that ranged in age from 15 to 18. We weren’t inseparable, but our new freedoms and common love of skateboarding and adrenaline kept us together much of the time. Matthew was intelligent, assertive and talented. Jeremy was the cool guy and best skater. Chad was care-free, witty and hilarious. I was the guy with the great ideas and this day I had a doozy…
It was a great Saturday in the summer of '94. Skateboarding all over Rivergate, we had already been kicked off of one property and we were pretty proud of it. During one confrontation, we were interrogated by a grumpy guy that must have owned the business park where we were waxing the curbs. He took down our names and threatened us with jail if we ever returned. He was probably surprised some time later, to hear our names on ESPN’s X-Games. We thought we were pretty funny.
We had been skating for hours and finally decided to stop for dinner. Skateboarding is demanding physically, and as conscientious teenagers, we realized the importance of proper nourishment and a healthy diet. We ordered two dozen donuts at Krispy Kreme to share between the four of us, and we were certain that we would have no problem finishing them off. It must have been fate, because by the time we were at capacity, we still had a full box of a dozen hot sticky donuts left over. The following solution to the obvious problem at hand was my idea, but it didn’t take much thought really:
What do you do with a dozen, hot, wet Krispy Kreme donuts when you're too full to eat them?
Requiring only our common sense, we proceeded to embark on the most logical course of action that anyone would take faced with the same dilemma...
We all hopped in my parents little ’88 Corolla that I was driving, cranked up some Green Day or The Offspring, and went directly across the street to cruise the parking lot of the Rivergate Mall. Finding ourselves in front of the entrance to Target, we spotted the perfect target. She was a rather rotund woman and she seemed to suspect something was amiss upon first eye contact. I drove up in front of her as she was approaching the store and Matthew leaned way out of the rear-passenger window. He said “Hey.” And as she looked at him, he tossed her a free donut. Maybe he tossed it a little too fast. Maybe the "toss" was more like a "throw". And maybe she didn’t want a free donut from a stranger. It bounced off her chest and a repeating pattern of human behavior began to take shape. Rather than being thankful for our offering, she directed a particular choice word at us (among others), and showed us a universal symbol of disapproval with her outstretched hand. She became very animated and her animation had an odd effect on us. We burst into hysterical laughter. We were having a grand time, we felt rewarded for our contribution, and the hunt was on…
We drove to Just4Feet, and Jeremy, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, executed a similar gesture of good will towards an unwitting pedestrian, which produced exactly the same behavior as before- in both the pedestrian and us. Moving along, we drove behind Just4Feet and across the intersection to Taco Bell and saw two girls who were close to our ages walking out the door. Matthew, armed with only his charm and Krispy Kreme carbohydrates, engaged the ladies in yet another encounter that yielded double the results of the others. We laughed all the way to Stein Mart.
Right from the start, I didn’t feel as comfortable with this next recipient as I did the others. We were waiting in front of the store for someone to come out and soon our wait was over. He was dressed in a nice grey sweater and navy khakis and he knew that we were suspect from his first glance. He was too confident and walked with ease, while never taking his eyes off of us as we cruised next to the sidewalk where he was traveling. Jeremy should have aborted the mission, but before he could get all his brain cells firing, the man said- “How’s it going?” With a smile, Jeremy replied “Pretty good” and an instant later, wet sugar and dough met wool. The man didn’t miss a step or say a word. We raced away and as we were laughing, Cool Sweater Dude calmly signed a guess at the sum of our combined IQ’s. It only took one of his hands and he got pretty close.
After witnessing the man’s nonchalance, I quickly regained my comfort level and my confidence, and I didn’t even feel the need to leave the same parking lot in our quest to properly dispose of the remaining eight treats. We drove to what used to be Service Merchandise just a couple hundred yards away from the last scene and continued our service of sharing our unwanted merchandise. We were unaware that we were about to receive a surprise of our own… Instead of being a guess at our intelligence level, we were alarmed to learn that the recent gesture we had received leaving Stein Mart was actually a message of how many minutes would transpire until Cool Sweater Dude would renew our acquaintance!
I’ll never forget that manly, shiny, black Bronco slamming to a stop in front of us, and Not So Cool Anymore Sweater Dude jumping out of said shiny black Bronco. Instinct made me hit the gas of my high performance four-cylinder and as I sped around him, glancing over my shoulder, I saw him jump back into his virile vehicle to resume the chase. I immediately knew by the overload of adrenaline and the electricity in the air that the danger meter had just shot through the roof. These were the moments that the four of us lived for. This was gonna be a good story.
Racing through the parking lot on a busy Saturday night, I headed for the exit that would take me out onto the busy Conference Drive and towards home. I quickly recognized conflicting pressures weighing in on my conscience. From my right Jeremy was emphatically saying “Don’t run!”, and “Stop the car!”. At the same time from directly behind me, Chad, in a way that I can only describe as “yellaughing”, while pounding on my headrest, was saying, “Go! Go! Go!”
I decided to stop the car and face the music. The thought flashed through my mind: "There's four of us and one of him - What can he really do to us?"
Instead of jumping out of the car we all sat still, and as if watching a movie we all stared out the left windows as Not At All Cool Anymore Sweater Dude exited his truck. He ran in a wide radius around the left side of our little car, yelling at the top of his lungs while pointing a black pistol straight at us! We quickly became aware that he was expectorating- “Get your hands out of the vehicle!” so in perfect, unrepeatable synchronicity we manually rolled our window knobs like mad and thrust our hands out of the car and into the sky. Something about his behavior and the object he held in his hands spoke clearly to us all that now was not the time be defiant. At that moment we understood the roles we were all called to play: Him - Alpha Male in complete control. Us - Scared, submissive pansies.
When he came up to the car, I got the feeling that he was glad we didn’t jump out of the car and thereby force him to have to decide whether or not to shoot us. He was spitting mad regardless, and as he held up his Police badge, he demanded our ID’s. He asked us if we had anything on our records, and everyone responded in the negative. He threatened us that if any one of us was lying, we would all be busted, and he rattled off a string of offenses we were presently guilty of. In my mind I was skeptical of his threats, but I didn’t let my face betray me. I was actually hoping that the other guys were telling the truth.
He went back to his shiny black bronco and reportedly checked out our ID’s with the Goodlettsville Police Department. When he came back he had calmed down considerably and proceeded to question us about what we were doing. Jeremy responded, “It’s guy’s night out.” It was funny but I was still highly sensitive to the officer’s volatility. The officer growled condescendingly “If it’s guy’s night out, aren’t you supposed to be out trying to get girls?!” And I blurted out before anyone else could respond - “No, we’re just being losers tonight.”
Somewhere in the process of the conversation, he reverted back to Cool Sweater Dude and finally let us go on our nervous, merry way. He effectively taught us that human behavior is not as predictable as we had become comfortable with. After realizing who we were dealing with, only one question has remained in our minds these 23 years later:
How on earth did he resist the urge to catch that perfect Krispy Kreme donut in his mouth?
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