EVER HAVE an obsession, a real obsession, like collecting Pez dispensers - Santa's the best! - or encasing your precious videotapes of "Good Times" under glass?

You might understand, then, the psychology of the Krispy Kreme addict.

They are not rarities. They surround us. They are our Philadelphia co-workers, our neighbors, our friends, our children, our spouses.

They drive great lengths to get their Krispy Kreme fix, throwing caution and their livelihoods (not to mention their waistlines) to the wind to savor the hot goodness of the glaze in a plump, round package that has 200 calories and 11 grams of fat.

Until now, Wilmington, Del., was where Philly had to go to get its hot doughnut fix - 10 or even 20 dozen at a time.

Note to all Philadelphia Krispy Kreme addicts: Take a seat. Inhale. Exhale.

The doors to Philly's first Krispy Kreme Factor Store will open at 5:30 a.m. Nov. 7 on Cottman Avenue near Roosevelt Boulevard in the Northeast, bringing hot Krispy Kreme doughnuts to the city for the first time.

But have a little pride, Philadelphia. Share your sleeping bags and jackets as you wait in the parking lot overnight Nov. 6. Don't wave hot doughnuts to taunt the folks at the end of the line on Red Lion Road. And please, please, grab a couple dozen napkins for the car ride home.

Inside city limits, Krispy Kremes have been available at Acme, Starbucks and a few Sunoco stations - but they aren't hot. Philadelphians who couldn't drive to factory stores in Wilmington, Pittsburgh or New York's Penn Station had to rely on the miracle of the microwave for that hot Krispy taste.

To Krispy connoisseurs, there is a huge difference between a room-temp supermarket doughnut and one that's hot from the oven. This distinction draws crazy crowds and cultish fans to each new factory store opening.

"I tried Dunkin' Donuts, but these are much better, they are fresher," gushed Viviana Gomez, a Wilmington nanny who was one of more than a dozen visitors at that city's factory store one recent day.

Some like 'em hot

Like a mirage on a rainy, bone-chilling day, the red "Hot Now" blazes on Concord Pike in Wilmington. Cars jet into the lot at 10, 11 a.m., even noon, for a warm Krispy Kreme lunch.

A doughnut's "hot life" is a short, fleeting ring of heaven. The conveyor that moves the goodies through the fryer and glaze churns only 10 feet farther before a "hot" doughnut is demoted to simply "fresh," suitable for supermarket shelves.

Pull up to the drive-through when the "Hot Now" sign is on at the 24-hour doughnut shop - that's between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. each day - and the doughnuts you'll buy are lovingly chosen from that precious conveyor stretch and carefully deposited in the trademark box using a white stick, "so as to avoid getting fingerprints on the glaze."

This is sacred stuff.

"I've been trying to figure it out," said Wilmington Factory store manager Keith Laganosky. "From the moment someone drives into the lot, they have this huge smile on their face, like, 'Thank God I've arrived.' "

Take "Brenda," who drives down once a week from Philly. Krispy Kreme workers label each of the 20 doughnut boxes she takes away with her co-workers' and neighbors' names.

"We just know when she calls, the order is a big one," said Laganosky.

Nuts for doughnuts

Krispy Kreme's recipe is shrouded in mystery and has been ever since entrepreneur Vernon Carver Rudolph bought a doughnut shop in 1933 in Paducah, Ky. The doughnut shop's former owner, a New Orleans chef, sold the rights to a secret, yeast-raised doughnut recipe along with the shop.

The operation moved to Nashville, then to Winston-Salem N.C., in 1937, where Rudolph set to work with $25, the recipe and some doughnut-making machinery.

Quickly, obsession was born.

Customers weren't satisfied with the supply delivered to local grocery stores, so Rudolph cut a hole in the wall of his Winston-Salem shop and began handing them out by the dozen.

Today's Krispy Kreme process is so secret, employees at the Winston-Salem, N.C., factory where the dough and glaze mixes are made work in three "cells."

Sound a little covert?

It is. No one cell knows what the other two cells are doing.

At each factory store that produces doughnuts, like Wilmington's or the soon-to-open store on Cottman Avenue, the process begins with the creating of yeast-raised dough in 10-, 20- or 30-pound batches. Ingredients are mixed, then the dough rests for about 45 minutes.

The heavy pillow of dough is dumped using a crane lift into an extruder, which uses air pressure to pump out hundreds of perfectly shaped rings each hour.

The raw dough rings are sticky to the touch, but after about 30 minutes in a proofer, where a mix of heat and humidity force the rings to rise, they feel more like puffy, pillowy Krispy Kremes.

Once risen, the rings meet their destiny. Row by sumptuous row, rings are flipped into frying oil, where they are browned on one side before being flipped again to create an even tan. Just when the smell of frying dough couldn't get any better, the rings are taken from the oil for quick immersion in a glaze waterfall.

Once glazed, they're ready for their two-minute trip on the retail curve, at which point their 120-degree internal temperature has mellowed to heavenly, munchable perfection.

"There's really nothing like a hot doughnut," said one man, hunched over two of them at a table in the Wilmington store. "And there's really no place else to get them hot anymore."

Secrets to success

Krispy Kreme began expanding out of the Southeast in the late 1990s. Some people knew Krispy Kreme only as a legend, others from trips through the Penn Station (New York) or Winston-Salem stores.

Krispy Kreme's arrival always creates mayhem. Sure, "Star Wars" fans do it, but can you remember the last time Americans stayed up all night waiting in line to sample a food?

Throughout 2001, the fervor grew steadily as new Krispy Kreme franchises opened in cities nationwide. The company's goal is bakeries in all 50 states.

In Fresno, Calif., several hundred doughnut devotees arrived hours before that "Hot Now" sign lit the franchise window at 5:30 a.m. for the first time in August 2001. In Issaquah, Wash., last October, folks camped outside to earn their turn at a new Krispy Kreme counter, then emerged in pajamas looking pathetic but proud as they carted 10 dozen doughnuts past flashing press cameras.

The first day the doughnut company traded on the NYSE in April 2000, its stock soared 76 percent. One would like to think investors knew a good thing when they saw it, since the company had posted $6 million profit in the months prior.

But one also has to assume they'd tasted the goods.

Right now, Krispy Kreme fans will be thrilled to hear, the company is focusing on northeastern states. About 16 stores will open in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware market during the next four years. The Cottman Avenue doughnut factory store will kick off the expansion.

Oh, and incidentally, the first person in line for the store's Nov. 7 opening gets a year of free doughnuts.

See you at 3 a.m.