Author's Note: I don't know. Don't ask me where this came from. It just hit me one day.
Disclaimer: The concept of "muffins and doughnuts" in relation to types of men is not mine, and certainly not Lorelai's, though it does sound like something she would come up with, doesn't it? It is the sole property of one Jennifer Cruise, and can be found in her hilariously funny book, Faking It, now available in paperback. (Yes, I'm pimping her book for her, but it's so funny and wonderful, I can't help it!) Also, Gilmore Girls and all related characters do not belong to me, and I'm not making any money off them, and I don't have any money anyway, so it would be of little use to anyone to sue me. Thank you, and enjoy.
Of Muffins and Doughnuts"I've come to a conclusion," Lorelai began around a mouthful of food.
"Hmm," Rory said, catching a bit of toast before it fell to the floor. "What's that?" she asked once she was sure the toast was safe and sound on her plate.
"There are two kinds of men in the world," Lorelai said, and made expansive gestures with her pastries.
"Only two?" Rory asked. "Isn't that kind of limiting?"
"Quiet! I'm not done," Lorelai said imperiously. "And besides, it's not limiting. You haven't even heard the whole thing yet!"
"Fine, I'll be quiet," Rory said, then made a zippering motion over her lips.
"I trained you so well. Anyway, the two types of men in the world. Luke!" She snapped her fingers at the man behind the counter. "Can I have a muffin, please?"
"You already had two doughnuts," Luke said. "I'm not going to give you a muffin, too!"
"Hey, who's the customer, here, demanding satisfaction? Oh, can I have another doughnut, too, please?" Lorelai sent a beaming smile in the direction of the counter.
From where they sat, Rory saw Luke roll his eyes. Nevertheless, he gave into Lorelai, as he always did, and brought her a blueberry muffin on a small plate, with a heavily frosted and sprinkled doughnut sitting next to it. He didn't say anything at all, just set the plate on the table and left.
"Now that I have the proper instruments of illustration, I shall tell you my brilliant theory." Lorelai pushed the plate to the center of the table. "Now, the first type of man is the doughnut."
Rory snickered, and Lorelai glared at her offspring. "As I was saying, the doughnuts are the kind that everyone wants. They're pretty, and tasty, and utterly, utterly bad for you. They will ruin your life, give you heart problems, and add inches to your butt."
"This is all theoretical, right?" Rory asked. "Because as long as I've known you, you haven't gained an ounce despite everything that you eat."
"Ah, but my metabolism is still going strong. As far as I know, I might continue eating like this and then I'll balloon up in my twilight years. Now, can I get on with explaining my brilliant theory?"
"Fine, go ahead," Rory said, resigned.
"Now, doughnuts. They're bad for you, physically and spiritually. Yet, everyone has had at least one doughnut in their lives. They're the fun men. The ones that give us the best sex of our lives."
Rory was too used to her mother to blush, but she did laugh when she saw Taylor choking on his own doughnut after listening to their conversation. He should know better by now.
"There's no way we can bring doughnuts home and introduce them to the parents," Lorelai continued, completely unaware of the havoc she was wreaking. "And they don't last long at all. I mean, you take home doughnuts overnight, what happens to them?"
"They get eaten?" Rory asked.
"You take them home and don't eat them," Lorelai said patiently. "They sit in the cupboard the whole night. What happens then?"
"We eat them in the morning?"
Lorelai stopped. "Okay. You're not cooperating. But what do the doughnuts look like in the morning? They're all sloppy, watery, gross. Doughnuts are not long-term commitments. They're one-night stands, that leave you happy but slightly regretful in the morning."
"Okay," Rory said. "I'll buy that. But the other kind of guy…?"
"Those are the muffins," Lorelai said proudly. "Muffins. Stable. Reliable. Slightly unexciting, but you know they'll be there for you. The sex is good, but it's not mind-blowing."
"Mom, we've talked about having these kinds of conversations in public," Rory sighed, watching a tourist at the next table—and elderly woman with blue hair—blush furiously as she bit into her muffin.
"I'm not done! Anyway, muffins are good for a long time, as long as you treat them right. They would be there for you forever if you treat them really right. And that's the two kinds of men there are. Doughnuts are the guys that are totally bad for us but that everyone goes for, and the muffins are the ones left in the pastry case until all the doughnuts are gone. But people are pretty happy with muffins once they get them."
"Ah, but don't most people dump the muffins as soon as a doughnut comes along?" Rory asked, trying to trick her mother.
"Only if they're dumb," Lorelai said. "Like you."
Rory coughed into her coffee. "Excuse me?" she said indignantly, her voice an octave higher than before.
"You were dumb and threw the muffin away for a doughnut."
Rory narrowed her eyes dangerously. "And you would be referring to…?"
"Dean and Jess, respectively. When the doughnut came along, you couldn't help yourself. You just followed the sugar and saturated fat and cholesterol right into the arms of the least reliable guy around!"
"Dean was not a muffin. He broke up with me."
"Even muffins are entitled to their feelings," Lorelai said calmly, not the least bit deterred by the warning growl in her daughter's voice. "He was sick of you drooling every time you passed the pastry counters, so he ended it. And he found someone who would appreciate a muffin like a muffin should be appreciated."
Rory sighed. "I know, mom," she said. "And I already told you that I'm happy for Dean. But just because Dean was a muffin—and I'm not really arguing that because what would be the point? You'd just argue with the argument…."
"Oh!" Lorelai said, slapping her hand flat on the table as she remembered. "And then there was Tristan!"
"But Tristan was a non-entity in my love life!"
"You kissed him," Lorelai reminded her.
"I know. Jeez, don't you think I remember that better than you do?"
"That's just the point! He's a total doughnut! Classic kiss-and-run attitude, goes through women like tissues. He's the perfect illustration of a doughnut!"
Rory glared at her mother, but didn't bother to press the point. "Anyway," she said pointedly, getting back to her original argument, "just because Dean was a muffin doesn't mean that Jess was a doughnut. He could've been a muffin."
Lorelai laughed outright. "That's another thing! Women always want to delude themselves that the doughnut they're with right now will turn into a muffin!"
"Well, what about you?" Rory asked, not wanting to talk or even think about Jess any more. "You haven't exactly had a great track record either with muffins! You've thrown two away already!"
"Two? How do you figure that?"
"Dad and Max. They were muffins."
"That's the daughter's bias coming through," Lorelai said, shaking her head. "Christopher is not a muffin. He's a doughnut, currently wearing the skin of a muffin. Really, think about it. Christopher was a total doughnut. Nice to look at, but you don't want to rely on him."
"I think he's very reliable," Rory said, defending her father, but without much fervor.
"Hmm…." Lorelai said, choosing a diplomatic silence.
"And anyway, you haven't said anything about Max," Rory continued. "He was a complete muffin, and you just tossed him out with the trash! What's with that?"
"I think he was a doughnut, too," Lorelai said, smiling because she knew she was irritating her daughter. "He was just fooling himself and everyone else with the whole, 'oh-look-at-me-I'm-so-reliable-I'm-a-teacher' thing. He was a complete doughnut."
"He was fooling himself?" Rory demanded. "How was he doing that? He just woke up one morning and thought, 'oh, I think I'll be a doughnut. I'm tired of being so reliable.' Yeah, right. He was a muffin, and you know it. You're just as bad as me. Worse, because I actually had a doughnut to leave my muffin for, and you just left the muffin!"
Oh, no, this was not good. She was getting sucked into her mother's rhetoric. This had to end, and quick, before she ended up labeling each and every male she saw with signs saying, "muffin" and "doughnut".
She knew there was one surefire way to get her mother to drop the subject. "I know of one muffin you've let sit in the display case until he's begun to grow mold."
"What?" Lorelai asked. She narrowed her eyes when Rory turned and nodded towards the counter, where Luke was pouring a cup of coffee for Kirk. "Luke is a muffin," she said readily. "But he's Nicole's muffin. And he was Rachel's muffin, too, but she was dumb and dumped him. Twice, may I add."
"Uh-huh," Rory said, interested that Lorelai hadn't thought she was referring to Kirk. "But he's still a muffin that was available for grabbing, and you never grabbed, even when there were no other pastries at all—doughnut or muffin variety—waiting. So, what do you say to that, huh?"
"I say I'm going to be late for work if I don't hurry," Lorelai said, and grabbed the blueberry muffin off the plate. She looked down at her hand for a long moment, then looked up to see her daughter smiling. "Not a word," she added, pointing a painted nail in her daughter's face. "Not one word."
Rory continued grinning as she chomped down on the last doughnut on the table.