Why did he get them to go?

MEDITATIVELY MUNCHING ON A TIGER TAIL, LA MESA — "The donut business is a tough business," says La Mesa Yum Yum Donuts manager Tim Tomake, whose shop was held up on June 18. "Profit margins are thinner than, well, than a person who does not eat our donuts. And thanks to the anti-carb movement, there are more and more of such people. We used to get whole families walking in here on Sunday mornings. Now, it's mostly furtive, miserable businessmen who just want a quick dozen for the office; decent people look at us with contempt and horror. Like we're a blot on the community. When all we're trying to do is provide a little pleasure in a sad and painful world."

But, says Tomake, there was always at least one consolation. "At least we knew this much: we would never be robbed. I remember watching a movie called Raising Arizona when I was a child. In it, a man tells another man, 'You want to find a donut shop? You call a cop. You want to find an outlaw? You call an outlaw.' I never forgot that. But now, it seems that maybe I should have forgotten it. It just doesn't seem fair, you know? I mean, there's a liquor store half a block down University! They couldn't have robbed them? I blame this new chief, this Zimmerman woman. She's probably got them all on some kind of high-protein regimen. It's a brave new world. I mean, for me, it has to be."