I love Dunkin Donuts.   I know it’s just a chain of low-end Doughnut shops, but  I go to Dunkin Donuts every day.   The baked goods and food are not so great, but I do enjoy the coffee.    When I moved, downsized, left the marital home, whatever you want to call it — I began a relationship with Dunkin’ Donuts that was very personal.

When the old house sold, the new “old” house was still being remodeled.  “Remodeling” makes it sound so pretty and exciting — so HGTV-like.   It wasn’t.  It was more a combination of Hoarders, Clean House, DIY’s Renovation Realities and Jerry Springer.   Oh, it was an adventure, but it wasn’t pretty.   Some of the details of the renovation will be in other posts, but for this you need to know that the kitchen had already been demolished to the studs, see  Toilet or Kitchen Sink  —  Who Can Tell?  and the home’s only bathroom was under construction to allow for an over the tub shower and for my boy to be able to stand in front of the toilet — like a man.   The tub and sink had previously been removed, only the toilet remained, temporarily, which looked like this:  Did you notice the duct tape on the toilet seat?  Did ya?   Can you imagine the germ fest going on there?   Although at least one of the prior owners wasn’t even using the toilet regularly, see Piss Puke and Porn,  . . .  that toilet was more than nasty.  It was a bio-hazard. This picture was taken almost a year before I moved in, when the prior owners were still living there.   Yet when I moved in, the same duct tape was still on the toilet,   now covered in plaster dust and construction dirt which had stuck to the urine stains on the commode like a weird kind of sand art.  Ew!!

We moved into this mess –  in Summer — and it was hot.  Wait for it . . . we moved into a true

. . . wait for it. . .  hot mess!

But at least we had a toilet to flush, assuming we could use it without touching it.    I kept a bottle of hand sanitizer on a bucket in the “bathroom.”  This held us over until we could use the hose — outside.    Oh yes, and I forgot to mention that since the bathroom ceiling and roof were being raised, there was no overhead light.  A desk lamp plugged into the one working outlet gave us some light — because you  need to see in order to use a toilet without touching it.  You need to see — but not too much, not too much, not in that house.   We were seriously roughing it.

Two days after we moved in the disgusting toilet was removed.  I was slightly relieved, not realizing that a simple plumbing fixture could actually scare me so much.    But this left us with no indoor plumbing at all.   Huh.   But when the toilet was taken outside and I saw it in the light of day?   Well, no indoor plumbing became suddenly acceptable, preferable, actually.

Still, I wasn’t alone.   I do have five children.    One kid was thankfully going on vacation with another family for a week.  That left four.  Four kids with nowhere to wash themselves, wash clothes or prepare food.    And the four kids left were girls, so going behind a tree — not so easy.

I schlepped the girls to and from Grandma and Grandpa’s house, along with our laundry.  But my elderly parents  also have only one bathroom as well and were quite distraught over our living conditions.   They were distraught?  Imagine how I felt.    I had to downplay the situation to keep my parents (who are Olympic level worriers) and my kids calm.    I pretended this was not that big a deal.  I deserve an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. I don’t want a SAG award, because I can’t get over the sound of that . . . but I digress.

Of course the bathroom construction was behind, though I was given reassurances to the contrary.   And, let’s just say my funds were not liquid at the moment, which severely limited my options. (This may be subject of another post.)

Our “Bathroom,” mid-construction

While the kids were at the grandparents or other activities (which I kept them in, so as to maintain normalcy and give them a place to go — literally — ha!) I stayed and worked at the house.   Professionals were doing the bathroom but I needed to be around to supervise, and continue my round the clock cleaning and painting, see That Hoarder’s Smell, and also try to organize our belongings —which were stored in stacks of boxes that could not yet be unpacked.  Of course, there was no need to unpack the kitchen because, well, we didn’t have one.   In addition, the house was not yet secure — broken locks and doors — someone needed to be around.

My morning routine was as follows:

I would get up, roll into my clothes or keep on whatever I’d slept in (because so very few of my clothes were accessible to me) and head to Dunkin Donuts.

Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan

Walking in quickly and giving the very hip  “up” nod to the workers, who knew me as a regular, I would head directly to the bathroom where, in addition to the normal thing to do, I would wash my face, dry it with a paper towel, grab the toothbrush and paste stashed in my purse, and brush my teeth.  When I emerged my coffee was ready for me.   The largely Pakistani staff expected me, remembered my order, and never gave me a hard time about my frequent and prolonged bathroom visits — even when I had the kids with me and we did it as a group, waiting our turn, usually at night, which brings me to—

The night-time routine:

“Okay, kids we need to go and use the bathroom for the last time before bed.  Get in the car.”

And we went to . . .  Dunkin’ Donuts.  The folks there would often give us free doughnuts, too!  Plus I made friends with one worker even though there was a huge language barrier and I later helped her with a very personal  issue — again something for another post.

I almost forgot that at one point there was a “Potty in the Basement” provided by the plumbers  — really it was like  an adult-sized training potty, except with chemicals.   Yeah, that didn’t work too well either, partly because there was no light down there in the oil stained, crumbling stone basement, and partly because the contents of that potty needed to be dumped–  not after every use because of the chemicals, but regularly.   This meant carrying it up broken basement stairs, through the house and outside (walking a plank which extended from the  back door four feet down to the ground, no deck or stairs yet) and then dumping it into the sewer line.

That potty overflowed once in the house.  Ew. I just shuddered a little, thinking about it.  Ew.

Damn, I’ve been through some shit, literally, shit  . . .  but I digress . . .  and this post is getting long.

Even Gabrielle on  “Desperate Housewives” has welcomed a Port-A-Potty when plumbing failed.

Realizing the bathroom remodel was going to take longer than expected, and when I finally had funds available (back child support was finally paid, on the very last day listed on the court order), I arranged for a port-a-potty to be installed in the back yard.   After all, it was a construction site.

Oh the Port-A-Potty — it gave us another round of adventures . . . since it was Summer and my children were and are very afraid of bugs and the dark . . .

Anyway, this is how my love affair with Dunkin’ Donuts happened, it wasn’t just about the coffee.

Just Me With . . . a fully functional bathroom  — now — though  I still enjoy my morning coffee from my friends at Dunkin’ Donuts. 

“Time to make the . . . Doughnuts?”

See, “She Asked For My Help”  for the issue with my Pakistani friend.