HARFOLD, Vermont-Elwood "Elmer" Edwards requires very little while on the job. With country music favorites queued up on his iPod, once Edwards pulls onto an Interstate and shifts his 18-wheeler into high gear, he only needs one hand to steer, and the other hand? Edwards smiles:
"Holdin' my Dunkin' Donuts large hazelnut, crème and sugar, well stirred."
Edwards' simple world was, however, thrown for a loop when he received his first haul out West.
"I'd always hauled taters or lumber up and down the East Coast," said Edwards, "so I was looking forward to seein' some new sights. But I ain't ever gotta see such a godless country ever again."
As it turned out, Edwards hardly got into the Midwest before reality struck.
"I'd picked up a D and D coffee in Joilet, Illinois, and was just about done with it and needed some gas, so I pulled off in Iowa City. As I'm tankin' up, I asked a fella where the local D and D was. Som'bitch looked at me like I had two heads."
It didn't get any better from there on out. Des Moines, Iowa; Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska; Laramie, Wyoming; Salt Lake City, Utah.
"I got this sinking feeling 'round Utah that I was up a Shit Crick without a paddle."
Edwards feels this his hellish ordeal has to call into the question the long-time Dunkin' Donuts slogan, "America runs on Dunkin'."
"It's bullshit," said Edwards. "Pure und utter bullshit. Looked up D and D locations on the Internet and they got 'em all over South America and Europe, but nothin' passed Davenport, Iowa? What the fuck?
"Peru got 12 cities with D & D locations. Fuckin' Berlin, Germany, got 23 branches alone! Slogan should be, 'Krauts run on Dunkin,' for shit's sake."
