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In Major League Baseball news this morning, I felt swept away, my heart warmed, by one of those quick eye-locking glances at Dunkin' Donuts. I engaged in this with the women with whom I order my Dunkin' Donuts cream, sugar and extra pumpkin sauce coffee every morning.

The glance lasted about 1.7 seconds before she, as is typical of women but not men, looked away and grabbed a donut for another customer. I would have kept staring as long as she did.

This women knows me. As I stroll towards the counter each day, she smiles and places my order without me saying anything. It's like when Norm walks into the Cheers bar and Sam pours him a beer automatically.

During our eye contact I had that feeling, you know that feeling, when you think maybe you're in love and this is the beginning of a torrid romance written about in a trashy novel that women read on the beach during the summer. I remember having a similar glance at a girl in seventh grade. When this man-to-woman chemistry erupts, it feels better than when the relationship progresses and you get to know and dislike each other, which always happens.

On her left nostril rested a ring 1/5^th the size of a thumbtack. My guess is she's from Mumbai, India, a country gushing with stunningly beautiful women. Her eyes and skin color remind me of the color of a UPS truck. American runs on Dunkin' and UPS trucks.

If she and I started a romance, our first date would be to a New York Mets game. On the way we would stop by the same Dunkin' Donuts where we would re-enact the crime. I would order the same thing, our eyes would glue on each other except this time for 11.7 seconds to make more lasting the arm and head tingles. I'm a blissfully married man, but man.

She likes me. I can tell. You just know. But wait until she gets to know me. She will fall out of love. Guaranteed. This is the circle of life.

Sure I'm about 30 years older, and it would be inappropriate for me to delve any further into this story. But I will because it's Happy Friday and within 30 years I will have dementia and pumpkin sauce will have lost its grip on my life.

That 1.7 seconds. Let me tell you, it was like hitting a baseball out of a major league park. The contact was so quick and crisp and pure that the eye joy felt like a weightless baseball bat cracking a ball. Yes. Felt real good, like a soft breeze on a sunburned face.

At the Mets game she would ask what I do for a living. I would tell her I'm a sports blogger. She would ask me why I do such a loser thing. I would tell her I'm not a loser, that only other people think so. As for me, I believe pumpkin sauce is lifting my career into the stratosphere, which is why I feel loose and able to take her to a Mets game where hot dogs cost $20 and Nachos with Cheese $25.

"I'm living large," I would tell her. "And I'm getting large because of the coffee you serve me every day. At some point this all has to stop because I have a career to get back to."

I ask: "What's that nose ring all about?"

"It's to attract men like you into Dunkin' Donuts," she says. "It's good for business, a competitive differentiator."

"I can relate," I say. "My competitive differentiator is writing to no readers about questionable flings with an Indian woman at a pro baseball game."

- Charles Hartley

Charles Hartley is a freelance writer who has had more than 1,000 articles published in a wide range of media outlets focused on humor, sports, business, technology and consumers. He has earned master's degrees in journalism and business administration and a bachelor's degree in English and communications.