Thursday, March 1, 2007

Krispy Kreme

There is a Hungarian saying "Bearanyoztak a reggelem" which literary translates "my morning had been coated with gold". I guess it is coming from the feeling that you see the first reddish-golden rays of the morning Sun and turn happy. It is used when your day has an outstandingly good start. That is what happened today. I saw this on my way to a meeting:
Wahaha! Krispy Kreme is coming, Krispy Kreme is coming to town.

Krispy Kreme was one of my favorite chains in the US. It is really nothing special, but doughnuts with overdosed sugar, typical southern states' taste. The good thing is Krispy Kreme allows you to see their machines and doughnut manufacturing lines through windows. Or maybe that was only the Raleigh outlet and they do not do that everywhere. And OK , I admit this is only a "good thing" if you are under age 10 or a big kid like me. Maybe there's absolutely nothing good in Krispy Kreme, but I still love it!

Krispy Kreme brought up many memories from the US. Working late night in the studios and the professor arriving at midnight with a tray of Krispy Kreme to encourage us finishing the assignment. Buying doughnuts with various friends. But my favorite story is the following:

In the US, I lived in an international dorm, called Alexander House. The main concept was to pair up a graduating American student with an international one, put them into a room, and wait until they start admire eachother's culture. Because multicultural knowledge makes you more. And actually this is true, and their concept worked great. The dorm had approx. 80 rooms and they organized great social events.

Anyway, at the end of the year there was a dorm meeting and a survey on how to spend the remaining allowance. The student body suggested three options for voting:
1. Remodel the shared kitchen area.
2. Build a bigger laundry room with new machines.
3. Buy trays of Krispy Kreme doughnuts to everyone.

Considering that half of the students living in the dorm were about to graduate and the other half were on exchange programs from other countries, what do you think the outcome of the voting was? Oh yeah, 100% for Option 3.

This is a good example of how misinterpreted democracy can screw up decisions which would be beneficial to the society / community but might not be beneficial to certain individuals.

So for weeks, each room got a full (24 piece) tray of Krispy Kreme iced dougnuts. After a few weeks, everyone was so fed up with eating sweet doughnuts that we ended up playing on the corridors by throwing dry doughnuts to eachother. Doughnut fights lasted long days...

To be fair with the management, they either got extra money from somewhere, or the leftover money was more than the cost of a few hundred trays of Krispy Kreme, because they did build a new laundry room. It was completed just before we left, I even remember getting free detergents when they opened it.

5 comments:

Sara said...

Where was I? How is it that I don't remember heaps of doughnuts in Alexander hall?

Sara said...

Although I do remember tons of leftover onion bagles that the RAs got free from the bakery for our hall meetings. I think it makes much more sense to have a fight with a nasty old bagel than a nice krispy kreme.

agnes koltay said...

You are questioning my creditability!! It did happen, wherever you were!! Shall I email Sophie? Btw, we had all kinds of food battles. Or guys had. Whatever they took from University Towers (was that its name??), the 5 dollar all-you-can-eat place. And do you remember the watergun game at the beginning of the year? That was cool too.

Sara said...

yes, i remember the watergun game, except i was killed before i realized it had started already.

Sara said...

More blog posts please. You know we don't get any news of Dubai in the Oregonian. :)