Donuts and Shakespeare

I stopped by the Dunkin Donuts on the way to work this morning and bought a dozen donuts.  I left with 12 of my favorites, but no blueberry donuts.  I like blueberry donuts.  But Dunkin doesn’t make one.  They make something called a blueberry donut, but if you look at the ingredients, you may notice one ingredient conspicuously missing.  You guessed it.  No blueberries.  In my opinion, you can’t make a blueberry donut without blueberries. 

I guess Dunkin makes a donut with some blue food colored specs and a bit of artificial flavoring and they call it a blueberry donut.  They can call it whatever they want.  It’s not a blueberry donut.  Maybe this bugs me because it seems like false advertising. It feels untruthful, and a little arogant. As if you can make something true just by declaring it so.  It reminds me of one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes: What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

 There is an amazing truth in that statement.  A realization that it doesn’t matter what you call a thing or what you may pretend it is or isn’t.  The truth of what it really is still remains.  It’s true of donuts, roses, and people.  

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