so...

It used to be that you could get a donut whenever you wanted. That isn't true anymore, it seems.

Last night, my wife wanted a donut. She loves donuts. And being that I'm one of those guys that likes to make my wife happy, we went on a donut run. At 9:30 pm. On a Sunday.

I didn't think twice about it. I've had the cravings for donuts many, many times in the past, usually late at night seeing as how I'm a night owl, and I've run down to Dunkin Donuts and bought myself whatever looked good. Last night changed the way that I think about donuts, and not in a good way.

For almost two hours my wife and I scoured the area looking for an open donut shop. We never found one.

The places that I used to go at 2:00 in the morning to pick up an apple-filled delight were closed. "No problem," my wife calmly stated, "there is a 24-hour place over in Roswell. Let's go there!" So off we went. No luck.

Being a Dunkin Donuts guy, I reluctantly decided that it was okay to go to the Krispy Kream shop over in Marietta, near the Big Chicken. I lived in that area for years, and I passed by a light reading "Hot Donuts Now!" more times than I can remember. It was always open, and seemingly always busy. So we made the long trek from Roswell to The Big Chicken. And when we got there...it was closed. Not out-of-business closed, just closed for the night. And obviously we weren't the only ones disappointed, as there were three other cars that had pulled into the parking lot and were turning around with the same confused look on the driver's face.

It seems that something in America has changed--at least in the southeast. It used to be that I was feeling a little swelling of pride, thinking that this part of the country was becoming like other places in the sense that you felt you could get what you wanted when you wanted it. Not anymore.

I can understand not being able to go buy things like a new car at midnight, but a donut? What are we coming to? Is our society so much in economic decline that we can't even get a glazed delight at any odd hour of the morning? Oh, how I mourn for our children's future...

Personally, I blame Wal-Mart.