Today is “National Doughnut Day.” Ordinarily, we would ignore this fact, just as we ignored National Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Day (April 20), National Chicken Wing Day (July 29), National Julienne Fries Day (August 11), and National Mincemeat Day (October 26); just as we will continue to ignore National Bouillabaisse Day (December 14), National Apricot Day (January 9), and National Bavarian Crêpes Day (March 22).
We would ignore it, ordinarily, because it is not a thing. It is so meaningless that there are, in fact, two different National Doughnut Days. The first Friday in June is also National Doughnut Day. According to my extensive research (reading one article on Wikipedia), the June National Doughnut Day was sparked by a 1938 Salvation Army fundraiser in Chicago, while the November National Doughnut Day — today — goes back to the time American POWs tricked the North Vietnamese into giving them doughnuts by making up a doughnut holiday. (Today appears to be the lesser of the National Doughnut Days, as evidenced by the fact that even Dunkin’ is not observing it; for your annual free-doughnut-with-purchase-of-a-beverage, you have to wait till June.)
Food holidays exist mostly so that companies can promote products, and ordinarily, we would spare you. But these are not ordinary times, and today is not an ordinary second-tier National Doughnut Day with no free doughnut deals. This is a day when we continue to wait for election results without breathing, trying to feel nothing.
We knew it would be like this — that it might be close; that there likely wouldn’t be definitive results for days or maybe weeks; that we should stay off the internet; that we wouldn’t stay off the internet; that sure, there’d be some armed protesters armed protesting somewhere. But it is very hard to deal with this level of uncertainty, it turns out, even if you were certain it was coming, and you deserve a doughnut. It is only right: It’s National Doughnut Day, after all, even if it is the lesser one that comes with no free doughnuts.
