Outside the Dunkin' Donuts

A four-mile path of sidewalk encircles the series of gated residential communities that includes mine. Walking around the circle, you'll pass The Isles, The Isles East, Venetian Isles, Viscaya Isles, Mariner's Cove Isles, and Yo Mama Isles: development after look-alike development with greenery and pavers, greenery and pavers. Plopped in the middle of all this, there is one corner of commerce: The Dunkin' Donuts, which faces the (not) diminutive church across the street that I fondly think of as the Baptist Vatican.

I took a stroll to the DD this morning, purchased a large iced tea unsweetened (to save on calories, of course) and a blueberry muffin (who cares about calories? ha!), and then sat at one of the two little tables outside watching people go in and out.

I saw white people, including a couple of sets of father-daughter duos, one of which got out of a pickup truck, the other out of a Mercedes. A young African-American guy ambled in wearing a navy blue t-shirt with "Vick 7" on the back. An olive skinned middle-aged couple was next: the man wearing jeans and a denim shirt with Ed Hardy scrawled in white cursive letters across the upper shoulder area, the woman wearing an embroidered tunic, polyester brown pants and a head scarf. A pretty young Hispanic woman in sunglasses with her dark, silky hair swooshing back and forth strutted in with purpose, her flip-flops clickety clacking on the pavement. Two women wore matching heather gray t-shirts that said #brave on the front. As they walked past me, I saw that their backs had the name of the supersized church.

That's when it hit me: A microcosm of the entire world could be found at the Dunkin' Donuts that is one mile from my house! South Florida suburbia, you are much more interesting than you let on.