Dancing in the Donut Shop

Every Sunday after Mass, we pick up donuts on our way home.   The same order ever week: one dozen-3 maple bars, 4 double chocolate, 1 glazed, 2 white with sprinkles, 1 Bavarian cream, and an apple fritter.  Add a cup of hot chocolate and a large mocha latte and you have our Sunday treat.  Week after week.  Month after month.  It’s part of the routine of my life.  Then the donut shop got a radio and tuned it to the oldies station.

I stood in line tapping my foot and swaying a bit to the music of my childhood.  The teenager behind the counter smiled at me and shook her head.  Then a voice behind me sang out, “If you said good-bye to me tonight..”

I turned around with a smile on my face and answered, “..there would still be music left to write..”

We started to sing together, then sway side by side to the music.  It was an awful duet, but also kind of wonderful.  A 30-something mom of six and a mid-40s short, pudgy, bald man singing out a Billy Joel tune and dancing in the donut line.  He was the impromptu Fred Astaire to my Ginger Rogers, except their music was never this cool.

As the girl handed me my box and drink carrier, my singing partner took my hand and twirled me around, to the further mortification of his teen-aged daughter.

“Thanks for the song,” I called over my shoulder.

“Anytime,” he answered back.

I laughed the whole way to the car and then relayed my tale of song to the stunned silence of my family.  Who was this woman in the car with them?  The old loo-lahs.  How funny they are.  We only get this one life.  Why not spend it singing out at the top of your lungs and dancing with anyone who wants to dance?  Just wait.  By the time I’m through, the whole group of them will be singing and dancing in perfectly choreographed steps….I can see it now.  If not….I’ll always have the donut shop.

Music to buy donuts to: