Only in America

Yesterday I ran 14 miles. Yeah, I know. Yay, me. But this blog entry isn't about patting myself on my back. If I wanted to pat myself on the back, I'd tell you about how, during the first leg of yesterday's run, I passed an old veteran nodding off in the sun only to notice that he hadn't moved so much as a single inch when I passed him again more than two hours later. Certain he was dead, I doubled back to wake him up. As you might imagine, he was grumpy—you'd be too if a sweaty know-it-all woke you from a deep sleep—but when I told him I was checking on him, he gave me a weak smile, told me he was OK, and thanked me. I suppose it helped win him over that I chose NOT to tell him I'd thought he was dead.

But this blog isn't about me running 14 miles or saving dead veterans who were neither dead nor in need of my misguided heroics. This blog's about the insanity of the food industry in America.

Somewhere between miles 7 and 8 yesterday, I ducked into a Dunkin' Donuts to buy a bottle of water. It had to have been clear I was in the middle of the run:

• I was rockin' my tune band;
  
• I was a sweaty mess;
  
• I literally jogged all the way to the door;
  
• I went directly for the drink cooler; and
  
• I'd even dropped two singles on the counter and made to turn without my change.
  

Despite all those clues, the most earnest Dunkin' Donuts employee in America—let's call him EDDE—became very agitated when I told him that yes, that was it, and tried to be off.

EDDE: But you know you get a free donut, right?
Me: I don't want it, thanks. I'm running.

EDDE: It's free.
Me (quick smile): I mean I'm running, like, right now.

EDDE (with exagerrated annunciation and patience): But, it's free.
Me (hitching a thumb at the guy behind me): Then give him whatever he wants.

The guy behind me in line tittered, and I moved to leave as EDDE called to me about my change, but I was already gone, gone, gone.

I spent a good half mile all worked up about how this country can ever possibly hope to be anything but an obese nation when the biggest donut chain has taken to giving out free lard wheels with a perfectly healthy water. But then I realized this was national donut appreciation day or some such.

Even so, EDDE's not the ripest tomato on the vine. Only in America would someone try and push a donut into a runner's hand during a pit stop. But, it's free, by jiggling ass.