Our writing can often be 'triggered' by something. That might be a smell or sound, the sight of something long forgotten that brings back a flash of memory, or words we read in our daily trawling through social media and internet platforms. Such 'triggers' can provide us with good prompts for a bit of five or ten minute writing.
We have a neighbourhood chat group that I check now and then, and this morning my eye was caught by someone taking a poll: is it OK to grocery shop in your pyjamas?
One respondent wrote that there are so many lovely pyjamas out there now, it can be hard to tell if they are sleeping attire or fashionable lounging gear. A couple of commenters said they don't wear pyjamas any more, and another declared it would be better to see someone in pyjamas than the young woman they recently observed shopping in a bra and track pants.
I lived in Atlanta for a long time before returning to New Zealand in the late 1980s. Our house was in Little Five Points and the nearest Krispy Kreme donut shop to us was on Ponce de Leon Avenue. If memory serves me correctly, it used to be open 24 hours a day, because it seems to me we were often going there at weird times.
In our pyjamas. And fluffy slippers.
True, we weren't going to the grocery store to shop, but still, going out in public, in pyjamas, felt rather daring and devil may care.
People have often described the craving for a Krispy Kreme donut that comes over them, because there is nothing quite like them. They are different to Dunkin' Donuts where I never went in my PJs but often stopped in on my courier delivery route. I struck up a friendship with the donut maker at the DD on North Druid Hills Rd (yes, Atlanta has some out there street names) who would come out from his donut making place, dusted white with flour and glistening with sugar, to chat with me.
Kispy Kremes have a distinctive look, feel, and smell. We would roll into the Ponce De Leon shop and often strike it lucky as they were bringing out a whole new flock of donuts, fresh off the very impressive conveyer belt that we could see through the window. The donuts would be warm, soft, the light crust of sugar just right, and of course the consumption would begin immediately to savour the warm deliciousness. Combined with the cozy cuddly nature of PJs and slippers, the experience was sublime.
At that time of night, in a city like Atlanta, at that shop located in that area, walking in with your PJs on registered nothing at all with other patrons or employees, clad as they were in their KK uniforms, or street walking gear (skimpy tops, tiny shorts, long legs encased in thigh high black boots), or night-shift workers already pale with fatigue and getting a sugar hit before starting work, fractious kids unable to sleep with parents getting them a late hour treat that would, no doubt, keep the kids fueled up for an even longer night.
Cravings for Krispy Kremes continued with late night pyjama forays to Ponce de Leon until one morning when I was suffering from an overindulgence the night before, being driven home by a friend who stopped for a bag of the donuts. The smell was one I could not abide, with a predictable outcome, and I have not been able to look at Krispy Kreme donuts since.