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I haven’t figured this out yet, but I feel like it involves some sort of government conspiracy. All the way back to 1948 there was concern about the size of the doughnut hole.

I ran across a chart/poster that supposedly is filed away in the Smithsonian, National Museum of American History. It even has a file number, box number and folder number. The curator in charge of this Collection of Doughnut Ephemera is named and everything about it seems official.

Ephemera is a word that stumped me as I have never heard it used and I had to ask our electronic device, Alexa, for an explanation. She smugly announced in a voice that could be heard all over the house, that it is something to be enjoyed only for a short time. She loves attempts at making me feel inferior. I hate it for you Alexa, but it isn’t working. She does not realize it, but she may be leading an ephemera existence.

The chart pictures a young adult man with a doughnut in his left hand and a pointer in his right. The man holding the chart has an uncanny resemblance to a young Mitch McConnell. Thus, the reason for my government conspiracy concerns.

The pointer focuses our attention on three doughnuts, the first is a large diameter doughnut that looks like it is on a diet, with little cake and a whopping one-and-a-half-inch hole in the middle. That configuration seemed to be popular in 1927.

Ten years later the diameter shrank and so did the hole size as depicted by the second doughnut. The 1937 shape features a fatter cake diameter, and a hole size that was slightly less than an inch.

Another 11 years passes, and the young Mitch McConnell wannabe is pointing at a doughnut with a hole that is less than a half inch. Just like you see in modern times, the picture depicts a fat doughnut that looks way more appetizing than what you get in the box. The one in Mitch’s left hand is way smaller. It appears that advertising agencies even back then, tried to deceive the consumer into thinking they will get something that looks like the poster in the window.

Don’t get me wrong, it may not look like the advertiser’s photo, but a hot Krispy Kreme doughnut tastes like it was heaven sent. There is nothing to do but dispatch my husband to fetch us a box of hot ones from up the street for comparison. The size today seems to have a slightly larger diameter with a hole about the same as in 1948.

Advertisers have influenced the packaging as well. As a little girl we sold a dozen doughnuts door-to-door to finance our school projects.

We presold them and on the appointed day we delivered a rectangular box that contained two rows of six doughnuts standing on the side. Nice and compact, sturdy, easy to handle. Today you get a flat box the size of a food tray. Same product, different packaging. The sheer size of the packaging is designed to make you think that you are getting more. You do get more, more aggravation.

I send my husband in Krispy Kreme when we pass, and the hot sign is on. I watch him struggle to get the car door open. You can’t hold the box by the sides with one hand as it is so flimsy it will fold up on you.

He reminds me of a character of the past, Bob’s Big Boy. It’s comical watching him holding the doughnut box high like a food tray, one handed, trying to balance it, while struggling with the door of the car with his other hand. It’s easier when we get the box home. We eat half of them on the way there.

Back to the young Mitch McConnel look-a-like. I am sure there is some symbolism in the old chart from the 1940s. I can imagine Mitch pointing at how the Republicans have shrunk the hole in the doughnut meaning they decreased the deficit. I can imagine Nancy and company on the Democrat side looking at the fatter doughnut with the small hole and proudly announcing that the symbolism is that today we get more for our tax dollars.

Like the title implies, this story is Much Ado About Nothing.

Dr. Darlene Atkinson-Moran grew up in Olanta. She always knew she wanted to be a teacher. She is retired from the education profession and now resides in Florence with her husband, Michael. Contact her at citizencolumnist@florencenews.com.

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