I don’t know what possessed me, but I bought a half dozen Dunkin’ Donuts last Friday.  You see, I was about to go on vacation and had run out of my usual Eggo’s homestyle waffles, which I eat every morning with a cup of extra-strong PG Tips tea.

I hate breakfast.  I don’t get it.  You really can’t drink wine with it, so, what’s the point?  I don’t like eggs.  I don’t like food doused in cold milk, so cereal is out.  I don’t eat yogurt or fruit, not even orange juice with sparkling wine.  Blech.

I do love bacon, but, unfortunately, I have hypertension. My Mother has it, too, all 4’10” and 90 pounds of her. (5’1” and 118 pounds of me, for full disclosure). It’s a genetic, old age thing, my internist tells me.  I was diagnosed with it right after The Veterinarian died suddenly and my Legal Problems started.  (Yes, I anthropomorphize my Legal Problems as an evil Disney character with me as the forlorn Disney princess.  And we know how Disney fairy tales turn out, don’t we?  I mean, why does the witch even bother?  Am I right?)

I even took a nuclear stress test, which showed that blood was rushing unimpeded throughout my body.  I did the treadmill test for the full 10 minutes without keeling over (although my bp was something like 200 at the end and dropped to 140 within five minutes).  I think they figured if that didn’t kill me, nothing would, so they’re covering their butts with the beta blocker.  Anyway, it’s supposed to slow my heart rate from that of a hummingbird to a tortoise.  It’s probably more like that of the BFF chasing deer into the woods than that of a normal human being.  The beta blocker has to be taken in the morning with food.  Blech.

For the first two years, I made myself eat a piece of white or whole wheat toast with peanut butter every single morning.  Then, I discovered that I could eat a plain waffle (no chocolate chips, no blueberries, no syrup) every morning.  It’s sort of like feeding The BFF, who will eat anything you give her at 6:30 am, or any other time, for that matter.  I eat two waffles.  They meet my requirements for food that must be eaten:  hot and tasteless.  Not slimy or slippery.  Not musty, tangy, or stinky.

Donuts are great, but I’m really liking my new abs and want to keep them.  If I could eat anything, I would eat a pain au chocolat or an almond croissant or even a plain croissant, as long as it was made with real butter, with a caffe latte (café au lait, in desperation), every single day.  Of course, after two days, the coffee would be killing my stomach, which is why I also take an omeprazole and why I drink strong black tea with milk and sweetener in the morning.

The reason that I bought six donuts, was that I had run out of frozen waffles and decided to treat myself to donuts on the three days before I left on vacation.  Why buy waffles that are just going to sit in the freezer while I’m gone?  Yes, I realize that three days means that three donuts would have been sufficient, but it seems sort of chintzy to just buy three donuts, when you could be saying, “I’ll take half a dozen, please.”  So, I got two chocolate frosted for Saturday, two chocolate glazed for Sunday, and two plain for Monday, my travel day.  The plain wouldn’t upset my stomach, you see, and I wouldn’t risk getting chocolate on my new pants.

My flight was leaving at 8:50 am, a relatively moderate departure time, given that the last time I flew, my departure was 5:53 am, which means we were told to be at the airport two hours early, but the freaking airport didn’t open until 4:30, so what was up with that?  A sick joke, if you ask me.  You show up at 3:53, and the agent tells about 100 sleep-deprived people, “Oh, well, you’ll just have to stand here with your eyes glazed over, because we don’t really open the counter or the self-serve kiosks until 4:30.”  Really?  The computerized self-service kiosk is on a break?  Really?  Is that a union rule?

I checked in at home and just needed to check my bag.  There were three agents standing around doing absolutely nothing at the US Airways counter, except telling people that they weren’t open.  So, what were the agents being paid to do?  I want a job like that.  No, really, I don’t.  Who wants to be at an airport at 3:53 in the morning repeatedly explaining things to irritated passengers?

This, my friends, is why no one dresses up to fly any more and why passengers get crazy when they finally board the aircraft.  Of course, they aren’t listening to the safety announcement.  They are so exhausted when they finally get wedged into their seats that they pass out.  The airlines should treat them to donuts and coffee, if they want civility in the formerly friendly skies.

And when said passenger is waiting to take her beta blocker until she can obtain food from one of the unopened concessions, mayhem very well may ensue.  Nope, not even Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts is open for the weary traveler at that hour.

That’s the last time I had a donut — two months ago.  Maybe I should eat donuts more often, so I wouldn’t be tempted to binge on them.  Of course, that would jeopardize my other health issue, high cholesterol, which I also share with My Little Mother.  The way I see it, I don’t really have high cholesterol.  I understand my medical condition like this:  the total cholesterol number is around 200, which is not so good, UNLESS you are me.  My bad cholesterol is within normal limits (wnl, as we say in the medical biz).  My good cholesterol is way above normal limits (I don’t know how we say that).  My triglycerides are whatever they’re supposed to be.  Put them all together, you get what looks to be a disaster, so, yet again, the docs are covering their butts, and I take a statin.

The irony?  I lost 20 pounds last summer, yet my blood pressure didn’t drop a single point, and my cholesterol is unchanged.  I would feel cheated, but my goal was to see my waist again before I die, so I’m pretty happy with the whole situation.  Bring on the donuts! If I die of either hypertension or blocked arteries, I will be a good-looking corpse with a smile on her face and chocolate smudges on her clothes.  So, who am I to complain?  Life is good (mostly).  Soli Deo Gloria!

DATE UPDATE:

I just saw an eHarmony commercial, where Beth, a pretty young blonde woman, tells the founder of eHarmony that she “just doesn’t have the time to answer all those eHarmony questions.”  Dr. Founder asks her, “Beth, do you want fast or forever?  Only eHarmony.com takes the time to find you that perfect someone.”  First of all, why is Beth sitting across the desk from a psychologist?  Is she mental, as Ed Grimley would say?  Is Dr. Founder a family friend?  Poor Beth.  The commercial makes her look like a shallow nitwit who doesn’t have the stamina or brains to answer 20 minutes of questions about the complexities of life.  Yet he is encouraging her to join, so she must be the ideal eHarmony woman.  And, of course, we know that I am not.  [See Why I am a Proud eHarmony Reject]

Better yet, she should try to join beautifulpeople.com where the members vote on who is beautiful enough to join them as desperate losers on a dating site where the average age appears to be 32.  I saw a beautiful blonde model on one of the magazine shows talking about how they rejected her, so I checked it out.  Lots of average-looking young people pretending to be hipsters, like a reality show.  On the reality shows, they also appear to have Big Bucks (you can tell, because the women clutch small ugly dogs and always have red-soled shoes — maybe Louboutins, maybe not — red paint is cheap), but, within two seasons, they are filing for bankruptcy or going to jail or getting divorced and losing their Bentleys (probably leased).  No more eyebrow threading, back to tweezing.   No more Birkin bags, back to Coach.  No more knockdown drag out fights in restaurants, back to — I don’t know.  Where do has-been reality stars go?  What a shame to give up such a glamorous, classy existence.

And their husbands always look like some of these guys on the dating sites.  Five o’clock shadows, pudgy waistlines, loud sport coats.  (I take back that last comment.  A loud sport coat would be an improvement worn over a wifebeater.)  If a guy like that can spend enough on a woman to make her look like a million dollars, then an online dater should be happy with just about anything with a pulse.  Ahhh… now I get it.  When a guy says he wants someone 18-105, he knows he could play Henry Higgins and get himself a fixer-upper.  I thought they were just looking for something to cover with a burka.

Hmmm…  I wish the following guy had been required to take a test before he emailed me.  Of course, he probably would have passed, and there ain’t enough Hermès in the world to get me to date him.

I became suspicious immediately because his description didn’t match his photo (He said he had blue eyes, but the photo clearly showed brown.  “Teacher?”  I thought not.  I decided to ask him about it.  This is our written conversation in its entirety.