Funky Dunkin!

This is a variation on a previous post.

One of the things they stressed in nursing school was the importance of good hygiene in the prevention of the spread of germs. Our instructors, after lining us up behind sinks, would watch us soap our fingers and wash them in very specific and clinically effective ways.

If we took short cuts or failed to meticulously scrub each finger to their liking, we’d be sent to the back of the line to do it over or worse: drummed out of the corps.

It’s no secret that nursing instructors are a harsh lot, but their strict standards were not formulated for the purpose of stripping us of our last shreds of dignity, rather the point they were making, and reinforcing and pounding into our otherwise empty heads was: germs are everywhere, often on our filthy hands and ready to spread if we were not hyper-vigilant.

Now that I work nights, I have gotten into the habit of stopping at “Crusty Crullers,” an ubiquitous pastry/coffee chain, for a mammoth coffee on my way into the office. Working while the rest of the world sleeps requires copious amounts of self-discipline and buckets of caffeinated beverages. In spite of the fact that I have discovered that sleep deprivation soundly trumps caffeine, the habit is entrenched. I like coffee: it is warm and soothing (unless it is iced coffee and then it is cool and soothing) and I like the size of the containers available at Crusty Crullers, even if the coffee itself is kind of lousy.

The pink and orange logo is familiar, and the staff seems to spend a whole lot of time training the new people to polish the fixtures and mop the floor. Obviously, there is a corporate policy regarding cleanliness that is strictly enforced, depending on the franchise. At 6:15 p.m., which is my regular arrival time, the employees are invariably hard at work, tending to the overall clutter-free ambience that is typical of Crusty Crullers: cleaning, sweeping and polishing.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit, I’ll have a donut now and then., Prior to recent heavy marketing campaigns pushing their coffee, Crusty Crullers got its start as a purveyor of donuts. In my youth, each branch of this concern had a bakery in the back, rolling out dough and dropping it into roiling vats of hot fat. Nowadays centralized kitchens, serviced by delivery trucks keep the racks donuts, bagels muffins and cookies full.

Anatomy buffs know that the skin is the largest organ in the body. It is a remarkable organ at that, among other things, keeps our insides on the insides. Our skin also serves as a shield, the first line of defense against malevolent microbes that are as ubiquitous as the ubiquitous pastry/coffee chain that has been mentioned repeatedly in this article.
To that end and armed with that knowledge, you see a lot more safety precautions in your day-to-day life. From the dental hygienist to the auto mechanic everyone is wearing gloves. And at Crusty Crullers there are systems in place to ensure that the pleasant baseball-capped food handlers are following what can only be company policy when it comes to food/hand contact and precautionary hygiene.

Like so many other places I go to get food that will kill me in other ways, the person behind the counter has the good habit of donning a fresh pair of disposable gloves prior to preparing whatever cheese laden porcine taste orgy I order. Before touching my filthy money, the gloves are removed, the cash register is operated and fresh gloves are put on prior to serving the next customer in line.

When a donut is ordered at Crusty Crullers, the employee grabs a clean paper bag and pops it open with a flick of the wrist. Then to ensure a barrier between their hands and the pastry (even though they are mandated by signs in two languages to wash their hands after using the facilities), a hermetically folded waxed paper square is employed to pick up the requested pastry / donut which is then deftly dropped in the bag.

As a health care professional, this procedure works for me. I am sure that scientists with Petri dishes could demonstrate that either it makes no difference or it does the job. I believe the best defense against these bugs is routine exposure and the natural development of antibodies. But with a whole new generation of super scary mutations popping up hither and thither, I appreciate the gesture on the part of Crusty Crullers. Tongs are another way of handling it but who knows if the tongs have recently been through a dishwasher?

So, after going to the trouble of carefully using the wax paper to safely move my donut from the rack to the bag, please don’t throw the waxed paper square into the bag. It ruins the effect.

And it makes me sick!

Hats off to Larry

Yes, "Hats Off to Larry," was an old doo-wop hit, or maybe not such a hit or not so much doo-wop, anyway, hats off to Larry, my dear friend who died last Christmas day.

Larry was, like me, a hat fancier and he left plenty nifty toppers in his wake. His wife, Maureen, called me over to have the right of first refusal of his collection which I reluctantly picked through. I have a gigantic, if not empty, head, slightly larger than Larry's, proving nothing about intellect and head size since Larry was smart as all get out and I am at best, just kinda smart.

Today, I wore my boater to Westport to look at 99% bad art. I can't slap a hat on my over sized noggin without thinking about Larry.

I miss you old man and I'd drink to you, but alas - or maybe - thank God - neither one of us drank (anymore). So, hats off to you old friend.

Talk is cheap

Late at night, on the floor, fluorescents burning a big hole in my cornea. When I am the boss around here, which is at least once a week, I turn the lights down. I call it "disco style." It makes it hard to read the fine print in front of you sometimes, but it has a calming effect on my coworkers and my "customers," many who are denied wrist watches, so they come out in the middle of the night to check the clock on our wall.

Let's then, talk about Michael Jackson, shall we?

First of all, is it really such a big shock that he is dead? I mean, I was surprised he made it this far. If the constant chipping away at his face didn't ultimately just reduce him to a headless corpse, isn't it possible for someone to just die of weirdness?

I know if this blog had readers, some of them might decide to get all caught up in the blather and criticise me for kicking a man while he is as down as you can get, but since I still await subscribers, I feel pretty comfortable that I am not offending anyone.

I like to flip back and forth from the news all day. Between Anthony Bourdain or the bald guy that eats weird stuff or the motorcycle dullards and see what's going on on MSNBC. Usually there is some sort of political argument about Sarah Palin or Barrack Obama, and there is seldom anyone new, really: Pat Buchanan, Eugene Robinson, et al. But between the arguing, I can usually decide what the major issues of the day are, but to have everyone all lathered up about MJ - c'mon! Reagan didn't get that much coverage and he got way too much coverage!

Slobbery, teary eyed, normally sedate newsblasters acting as if Michael Jackson made the sun rise and set. Ended up there was nothing for me to watch newswise today, although the bald guy was chewing on some beaver intestines and Bordaine was drunk in some foreign country - again.

I was glad that I had DVR'ed "Mr. Hulot's Holiday" so there was something to do on a rainy day while I waited to go to work.

Lowgiene

I'll admit. I frequent Dunkin' Donuts.

When I didn't work the night shift, I was particular about my coffee. I always thought DD coffee was over-praised.

However, you can't beat the volume of a large DD coffee when you are walking into a 13 hour overnight shift.

This post is about the donuts. First of all, are they really donuts? The franchise is ubiquitous, no doubt about it. But I have had better donuts, fresh, out of the grease, second degree burn glazed donuts. But these Dunkin' Donuts are underwhelming. What's worse, they are no longer made in the back room, rather they are all made somewhere in a central bakery, no doubt in New Jersey - not that there's anything wrong with that. Problem is that they are stale about the time they show up.

Having said all that I am known to select a product called "Chocolate Stick" along with my extra large coffee. The attendant, or the worker, or whatever has been trained to handle the goods in a specific hygienic fashion. They'll take a bag in their left hand, hold it by the corner, swing their arm in a fast arc, forcing it open. With the right hand, they'll carefully pull a square of wax paper out of a box to make a barrier between the worker's hand and the product. The product is carefully maneuvered into the bag and dropped in. Boom. Assuming the product made it to the shelf without direct human contact, it can be argued that the square of wax paper had completed the transaction so that the only hand that ever touches the product, in this case the "Chocolate Stick," is the purchaser, or in this case, mine.

But lately, I have noticed that the wax paper has ended up in the bag. This brings any bugs that may be lurking on the employees hands join the product in the bag.

I'm not like that, really, but - really!

Indepants

Fourth of July. Table of food. Beach full of strangers. A handful of friends and family.

Two sets of fireworks. Buckets of moosquitoes. Fabulous clouds. Summer is finally here.

Hot dog!