Every once in a while, a master builder joins the online LEGO community from out of the blue and brings along a slew of eye-opening creations. In my recent perusal of Flickr, I came across a new member who prefers to be addressed humbly as Donut. On the other hand, his creations are nothing of the modest kind – they are the works of a master. In my curiosity to press for the truth, I initiated a conversation with the builder that ultimately bore the fruit of this insightful and inspirational interview.

TBB: Tell us about yourself, how long have you been building?

Donut: I believe I was a kid when I got my first LEGO set, it had those cool minifigs in red, blue, and yellow that wore round hats and flew around in planes of all kinds of shapes. I feel like it’s been thirty years. I’ve been building since then until the LEGO sets themselves told me that I was too old. I was no longer 6-12 years old and that meant I can’t have no more bricks anymore. I was so overwhelmed with sadness when I gave away all my LEGO to my thirty-year old neighbor who said he had a son who loves LEGO, though I’ve never seen him. I felt so alone in the world without my bricks.

TBB: How did you get back into building?

Donut: I couldn’t bear to live a life without LEGO, so I rummaged the house and scavenged a handful of leftover bricks in all nooks and crannies. I secretly built in the closet in the basement every moment I can spare. I thought that if I’d been caught, it’d be worse than having cheated on my girlfriend. Eventually, I engineered a secret compartment in my house to store my bricks.

TBB: When did you decide to publicaly reveal your hobby and what inspired you to do so?

Donut: Well, not to sound gay or anything, but I came out of the closet just recently. I have to admit that the story was pretty embarrasing now that I think about it. I had been at work one day and was experiencing the most boring day of my life. Since the economy went bad, we were getting less and less customers to invest in our Margaritaville-brand magarita mixer. I was sitting in front of my computer thinking nothing but LEGO. All the while I wanted to search for LEGO on the internet. I thought that if I’d been caught, it’d be worse than having downloaded pr0n. In the end I caved in temptation, so I googled for LEGO. Lo and behold, there were all sorts of websites with adults and LEGO, it was like everyone was doing it back in the Sixties!

TBB: How did you feel afterwards?

Donut: Man, that was the best day of my life! When I came home I took out all my bricks and built for more than 48 hours non-stop. I wanted to share my creations with the world and see what everyone else is building. It was a shame I never took photos of my creations. I can say with certainty that there had been thousands of MOCs in my years of behind the scenes building. Although I’ve only built less than a dozen new creations this week, they’re all uploaded onto my new Flickr account.

TBB: In our last question to wrap up the interview, what have you concluded from your unusual experience with LEGO?

Donut: If Yu-Gi-Oh was a minifig, he’d be saying “never stop believing in the heart of the bricks!” Phrases like that catch on when you have kids who watch cartoons. But in addition to that, I also want to say to never believe the age markings on the LEGO boxes, because you can never be too old to build. That’s what I love about these bricks, man: I get older, they stay the same shape. I love the smell of bricks in the morning. It smells like victory. Recently someone saw my LEGO room and told me that this is madness, but I screamed to his face “this is LEGOland!” and kicked him into the nearest uncovered manhole on the streets. From above I told him my momma always said “life is like a tub of LEGO bricks. You never know what you’re gonna get”. So until then, hasta la vista, baby.