Cream of the Box

An Essay by Stephen Geez
www.StephenGeez.com

Art by D. R .Wagner

Bob brought the donuts.

They usually proved quite tasty, too, but if you dive into boxes of fresh-baked cream donuts often enough, eventually you’ll find some missing their filling.  The icer’s tank can hit a pocket of air or simply run dry, transforming the last few cakes into taunting false-advertisers sporting misleading holes in their sides . . .  but no cream.  Bob once unwittingly brought us a whole boxful of those brazen poseurs.

Aunt Doris and Uncle Bob Sullivan lived on the next street during my early years, a ubiquitous pair who never let a moment drag.   After their jobs shifted to another state, they settled into a routine of making long drives to spend weekends with us, two families crowded into a small house—one big family, really, filling a home.  Bob would rise early every morning and head out to brave the elements, returning with great heaps of warm pastries to rouse bleary-eyed sleepy-heads.

But then his trusty local baker betrayed him, reneging on the promise of gushy sweetness to squish with every bite.  Pressed to explain, Bob just shrugged and told us, “I used a straw to suck out all the cream.  Next time get up before I pull out my straw.”

My little sister acted like she sort of believed him, and though Bob’s threat became a running joke for many years, more than a few times I spied her pausing to inspect her selected confection for telltale signs of stealthy uncle tampering.  That first bite filling her mouth with silky cream, she’d cast a sly glance his direction. Bob would narrow his beady eyes and say, “So I wasn’t hungry . . .  this time.”

As young donut-eaters move on to explore the bigger world, they inevitably cross paths with the sorts who will sneak the cream from another’s lot, the ones who’ll present a box of chocolates missing all the soft caramels, scrounge through a bowl of mixed nuts to claim their personal favorites, then pick through lettuce on a salad bar to pluck all the cherry tomatoes for themselves.

Still, these foibles are mostly harmless, but too often those same people become the movers and shakers who treat our world as their own personal salad bar.  I’d prefer that timber barons understand the need to preserve at least some tracts of old growth, that builders would send wastewater downstream as clear as it flowed to them, that manufacturers prove willingness to move their own families to the very towns that breathe beneath the stacks.

But can’t it be argued that you should seize the moment, enjoy every minute, take what you can and enjoy what you take?  Why shy from the sunshine of a weekend with friends to save for lonesome rainy days?  Why deny yourself a lifetime of creature comforts, only for the end to come in some dingy dive, your legacy a lumpy mattress stuffed with moldy cash?

Bob preferred, instead, his own brand of quiet selflessness.  He’d buy all the fundraiser zoom-zooms to support my troop, surprise me with that new metronome my piano teacher advised, and take off work early to drive 200 miles so I could pick up my prom date in his new Cadillac.

It’s that balance between self-interest and generosity of spirit that too many can’t seem to strike, a rare feat Bob somehow managed to perfect.  He could be an ornery, cantankerous curmudgeon who always made sure he got what he had coming, but he’d give it away in an instant if he suspected someone needed it more.

It’s been decades since Uncle Bob died, far too young, much too soon.  He did leave me some mementos, but his greatest gift was those weekends, countless moments that never dragged, cherished memories and the love that infused them.

As far as I know, Bob never actually ravaged any unwary donuts with his mischievous straw, but I’ll never again eat a cream-filled pastry without checking for evidence that somehow he’d managed to get there before me.

And if I could find any way even now to let him take it, he’d be welcome to all the pastry fillings in the world.

Still, there’s one thing too many people fail to remember:

It’s easy to worry about who might want your share of the cream . . . 

Just don’t forget to appreciate whoever brings the donuts.

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