The Cultural Phenomenon Known as SONIC Comes to San Diego North County

There used to be a Sonic (America's Drive-In) located in Oceanside, within eyesight of Oceanside High School. That's where I first discovered them. While I was robbing my husband from the cradle. So quaint with their parking booths with speakers so you can order right there, and a CARHOP (yes, you read me correctly, I said "CARHOP") on roller skates (or blades) will come out to get your money, make change from one of those nifty change-maker thingies on his or her belt, and deliver your food on a tray right to your car window. Where you can then sit and dine and whatever else you do when you are having dinner in your car, and there you have it. American dining at its best. And YUM!! I DO mean at its BEST! Good old fashioned This-is-a-REAL-Hamburger taste! It is Heaven on bread with your choice of ketchup, mustard or mayo.

I won't go into the deceivingly simple menu, nor wax poetic about every item upon it. Though I could. I could write a novel alone on my feelings about their DRINKS and MALTS and SHAKES... I am getting light headed just thinking about it - and I just ATE Sonic. It's just that GOOD. ((Taking a sip of Ocean Water - which as described on their site, "Despite its name, (it) tastes nothing like the ocean. Which is probably a good thing. But it is blue, with a tangy flavor and a hint of coconut.")) O.M.G. Just go look for yourself.

http://www.sonicdrivein.com/home.jsp

Anyway, notice how I said "used to be" in that first paragraph concerning our Sonic. There was also one in Escondido. I never went to that one. Anyway, "used to be" and "was". It was a real bummer when they went away - and that was more than 10 years ago. Nothing like them anywhere. Not in quality of food, not in fun of atmosphere. Just *POOF!* gone. Like they never were. Kinda like what happened to the A&W restaurants. Loved those too.

Then here a few years ago, they started torturing us with commercials out of L.A.

Los Angeles had Sonics.

Dammit.

I actually TRULY considered driving the hour and a half JUST to go to a Sonic again. Yes, it's THAT good.

But it appears that I do not love Sonic more than I hate L.A. So I never went.

Then my kid goes and spends a few days at a friend's house while the termite fumigation is in process and tells me there's a new Sonic across the street from the Krikorian Theater. Dang. That's close enough to walk to. If I was so inclined to walk or something. It's really only a few miles down the road. I am not necessarily so inclined.

Well, I immediately forgot about it. Like it was too much wonderful information for my mind to contain.

Then last night my husband calls on his way to his somewhat weekly D&D game (yeah, well - your husband does something goofy, too), and says "HEY! There's a Sonic over here by the theater!"

Today I went to get us lunch at Sonic. What a sacred, hallowed time. What a glorious event!

As I approached, I realized that the line my husband had described was still intact. Or, I suppose reformed. People were wrapped around the building like any group of fans at a major rock concert. All the order booths were full and rockin'. There were happy faces atop roller skating carhops in black slacks and bright green polos with yellow collars everywhere I looked. All the tables in front of the place were overflowing with food and families. The drive thru didn't even have but a few cars in it...what was up with that? And how the hell do you get in there? There were orange stakes cordoning off EVERYTHING with yellow caution tape, and I couldn't figure it out. I drove around the block three times before I decided to get in line with all the other people who were not smart enough to know how to use the Sonic and who were waiting to ask the girl with the Sonic uniform, "WTF?!"

I finally get to her, and I am all grins and smiles and giggles and laughs, because I have since seen the signs that say, "SONIC EVENT" on them. And have realized I am at a car carnival for food. She explains that I have to go to the Main Street parking lot, where I will enter the Sonic Staging Area, and I will be issued a BLUE TICKET so that she may ALLOW me to enter the drive thru. HAHAHAHA

I am SO loving this!! It has now been about 45 minutes since I told the fam I was going to get lunch from Sonic.

I again have to circle the parking lot several times before I find the tiny opening into it. I am then given a paper menu (full color, very nice), and told to follow the outside edge (there is room for perhaps 100 cars in this set up in the empty lot) to where I will be shown where to get in line so I can wait to get in line to go to the drive thru at the restaurant which is now across the street from me. The Sonic employee (in her smart black slacks and red polo shirt) tells me it is approximately a 30 minute wait. I don't mind. I have music, and I realize I have become part of a small (but HUGE in its impact on our little city space!) Vista cultural phenomenon. How exciting! I am committed to the experience, no matter how long it takes.

And besides, those damn commercials out of L.A. are still playing in my head, and I cannot STAND it. NO WAY am I going home without this food. And a drink.

So I sit in that parking lot, listening to "Buddha Spirit" (the first, just beautiful - Anael, by the way, in case you never pay attention to my continually telling you to buy her and Bradfield's music ), and watch the brouhaha. It is utterly fascinating. An older gentleman in a big floppy hat and full gray beard stops by to ask me if I would like a Main Street coupon book ("It's free." - Well, yeah I want it, if it's free). I sing, I smile, I laugh at the silliness of it all. And I get hungrier. Thank goodness I remembered to bring my water. (Yet another Gratuitous Plug - "Aquamantra". Yeah, the bottles are plastic. But I only have the one, and I reuse it. And I don't think this one plastic bottle will kill me chemically, either. It is the "I AM LOVED" design.) It reminds me of when I used to go early to pick my kids up from school to do the same thing - get in line, park and listen to music. It is just about half an hour when the car in front of me starts up and begins to move. A nice young gentleman in a red and black Sonic uniform comes up to my car, plants a BLUE TICKET on my window under the wiper and tells me to "Follow that car in front" of me. Of course, I do. It's so exciting!

We meander a little through the short streets that are our Main Street district, and there's the girl I first started the process with - who will now let me INTO the Sonic parking lot so that I can get in line again, in order to access the drive thru. She smiles and takes the BLUE TICKET off my windshield, and tells me the next employee will tell me where to go. I drive through those golden gates (the orange stakes with the caution tape), and the next smiling employee is there to greet me and tell me to "follow the U" - another set of stakes and tape to allow another line which will wait AGAIN to get to the drive thru. I really do not mind. I am so thrilled with all the activity, and everyone is so nice, and the day is pleasant, and Anael is singing in my stereo, and it's Saturday and who cares how long this takes?

Slowly we all wind our way along the "U", and I notice the huge refrigerated trailer and mountain of boxes with paper products and foam cups. I'd wondered how they were managing to keep enough food to MAKE...I could imagine them having to tell us all to go home, that they simply ran out of everything. Sheesh - I have been at work at a fast food place when we ran out of ONE thing. It seriously sucks. BIG TIME. But, no... everything seems to be operating like clockwork. I see what I suppose must be the manager ((*applause*)) in his black slacks and MAROON shirt, a middle aged man with gray neat hair, on the phone around the back of the building a bit, and speaking cordially with employees. What a manager HE is!! What a TEAM!! I can absolutely appreciate the challenges of all this!! ((**more applause**)) All employees are either smiling or at least look pretty peaceful. Not an unhappy face in the bunch. All voices are friendly and welcoming. Everything is just so PLEASANT. Makes me think of that movie, "Pleasantville". I really liked that movie.

Finally, I am at the exit of the "U", and the girl at the exit tells me, "Just wait for that Explorer ahead of you to move up to the speaker, and then you can move forward." I'm almost there!! I'm like a kid getting her chance at Santa Claus. I mean in that period between the time he makes you scream and the time you're too old and he makes you bored and irritated. That Santa Claus Sweet Spot, as it were. I am already mentally drinking my Ocean Water (which does NOT taste like the ocean).

And then....it is my turn.

I turn off the stereo (sorry Anael and Bradfield, Sonic has overshadowed you in this moment - LOL). A lilting voice emerges from the speaker, "Hello, welcome to Sonic. I will be with you in just a moment." I know what that means. I noticed how the cars in front of me sat in front of this speaker for yet another 10 minutes or so. I am not concerned. I am up close and personal with everything, and I am utterly delighted.

About 10 minutes later, an employee comes to my window to tell me that I am not being ignored, but with the volume of business there have been a few times throughout the day that things got a little fouled up and they had to take a little time to straighten things out, but that they would be with me in just a few moments. I tell her I am in no rush (it had now been about an hour and a half since I'd left home to "go get lunch"), and that I was just enjoying the spectacle of the thing. This made her laugh, which made me feel really good. We laughed together. And no more than 5 minutes later, she was back on the speaker and taking my order.

I asked, "Do I just drive forward now?" and she laughs, "Yes, Ma'am!" I laugh too. Drive up, pay the tab, get the food - and my Ocean Water (YUM!) - and I was on my merry way. And I DO mean merry. They got the order RIGHT, too.

We have now consumed said Sonic. Well, husband and Dad managed to consume theirs. Me and the kid are still working on it. Husband finished his, oozed out of the chair at his computer desk in our bedroom, and slid across the bed mumbling, "Carb Coma"...and pretty much immediately fell asleep. He remains there now, snoring. He said my typing wouldn't bother him in the least ("Just pretend I am not here"). It appears it does not.

My family thinks I'm a little goofy, and I don't think certain members even believe me - but I am going back tomorrow to get pictures. This is like the biggest thing EVER to happen in Vista. Someone needs to be recording it for posterity.

Besides. I'll want another drink by then.