Encylopedia Brown and the Great Iced Ring Mystery

February 13, 2008

Sometimes, on the way to work, Sara and I like to stop off at out local supermarket and pick up these small, round pieces of fried dough with some sort of frosting on top.

Up until recently, they were called “donuts” (and sometimes even “doughnuts”). Then, one day, we walked in, and they were no longer “donuts,” but rather “iced rings.”

We fought through our confusion, and began adapting to post-donut life. Being young and mentally agile, making the transition from “donut” to “iced ring” should present minimal problems. And while we certainly did manage to make the switch with a minimum of fuss and worry, there were still these nagging questions in the back of my mind:

• Did they change the name because “Doughnuts” had been copyrighted by some big company somewhere?
• Were they being leaned on by the printing ink crowd to increase their use of the stuff? (After all, the move from “donuts” to “iced ring” is a 25% increase in letters used. Converesely, the move from “doughnuts” to “iced rings” is almost a 10% reduction in lettering…)
• Was this some sort of CIA mind control experiment? To see who would notice, or who would be bothered, or who would take umbrage at this swticharoo? Are they preparing for some sort of takeover, and are attempting to weed out those most bothered by change?

Well, I wasn’t happy to just let this go unanswered, so today, I began some low-level inquiry into the change. I decided to start at the ground level, with the bakery staff themselves. The grunts of the whole operation.

Me: “So, I’ve noticed that these (pointing to “iced rings”) are now called “iced rings.” But, I notice these (pointing to the inedible “old fashioned cake donuts”) are still called “donuts.” Interesting. Could you shed some light, possibly, on the rationale for this re-labeling?”

Bakery Lady: “Them are cake donuts.”

While I may have paraphrased my initial comments, the words from Bakery Lady are presented here verbatim.

I *will* get to the bottom of this, even if I have to travel to Virginia and speak to the head of the CIA himself. My next stop, however, is the secretive “bakery manager.” If he won’t give up the goods, I’ll keep going up the chain until I get satisfaction.

I can keep this quest up for a long time…at least until the donut, er, iced ring money holds out.

Posted in Abilene, DOF, Life, Random