Week #39, Fast Stop, Independence, MO

While driving through Independence on our way to the Santa-Cali-Gon Festival, we saw this sign at a convenience store.

Misspelling aside, it looked like a place to visit on a donut adventure. John and I went back on a rainy weekday to check out the donuts.

As we pulled into the parking lot, I noticed the store employee and a fella were busy chatting and smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk. Not only were they blocking the way into the store, they shared their second-hand smoke with me. Great! I’d love an asthma attack with my donuts please. Is there an extra charge for that?

After walking through the wall of smoke, we were smacked with the smell of cheap disinfectant inside the convenience store. I’m not sure what had been disinfected as the place was filthy. The floors were gross, that sticky kind of gross usually reserved for bars and cheap movie theatres. This was the first donut adventure where I was actually pleased that gluten-intolerance would prohibit me from eating a donut. I really didn’t want to eat anything from this place.

We located the donuts in a small countertop bakery case near the coffee. John is a coffee junkie but decided to skip it and brave only the donuts. The much-touted donuts were from a commercial bakery whose name I won’t print here because it is not their fault this store is filthy. The bakery case is very tidy and I did notice a nice, fresh donut smell when opening the door. John choose a chocolate frosted long john and a glazed donut.

We paid the cashier, who was still busy chatting with the fella and made our way out of the store. We weren’t even out of the parking lot before the cashier had returned to the sidewalk with her friend. There must have been some pressing matter that required multiple smoke breaks.

John declared the donuts as average, but perhaps they would have been rated as better-than-average if the experience had been different. Lesson learned, skip the donuts at a convenience store with misspellings on their/there/they’re sign.