The Epic Voyage to Sonic

Last night, friends, was an epic night.

It all revolves around my first ever visit to Sonic, aka "America's Drive-In." You see, here in Toledo they constantly show the commericials for Sonic, but there is none to be found around here. The closest one is in miniscule Van Wert, Ohio, approximately 2 hours away from my house.

And, boy, the stuff they show in these commercials is tantalizing. Shakes and ice cream and double cheeseburgers and slushies. Mmmm. Obviously, my friends and I do not want to be put out of "the loop," so we have made multiple vows to visit Sonic. However, none of those came to fruition. That is, until last night [triumphant music].

I was bumming around my house after dinner, texting multiple friends to see if anything sexy was going on. That's when I caught wind of the trip, and it seemed the just thing to do. So I ventured off in my humble Mercury Voyager to Bowling Green, Ohio, home of the BGSU Falcons and my old high school friends' apartment. There we made our plans.

We departed at about 9:20 PM, "we" including myself, my friend Erik, my friend Chris and his new beau Kelly. Mind you, the Sonic we were going to closed at midnight, so if we got lost and attacked by the Van Wert zombies, we could easily miss the time frame. Nevertheless, it was a risk we were willing to take to have our first taste of Sonic.

We made it to Van Wert after an hour and twenty minutes of reminiscing and poking each other (we went to an all guys school, so it's cool). Then we saw the Sonic's beacon of welcoming light and we zoomed over and pulled up right next to one of the talker-majigers. We ordered cheeseburgers all around, and some onion rings, fries, and tator tots, and root beers. Delicious.

We waited about ten minutes, getting more and more thirsty for beef. Finally, an overweight middle-aged woman comes to our window, saying she dropped our food and that she will make us some more. We said, "wha?" Then we looked behind us and saw the fiasco, a tray, bags of food, smashed soft drinks. I then felt the instant pangs of regret that I did not see the woman fall.

Alas.

I sat there studying the bags, noticing how the cheeseburgers were probably still edible. Then I proposed, kinda jokingly in case anybody thought I was weird: "You know, ha, I bet those burgers are still good, it's a shame that there just going to waste, hahaha." Luckily, I got the reaction I was fishing for: "Go get 'em!" So I scampered out of the car, making sure no employees saw our theft of garbage, grabbed the bag and dashed back to my seat. I was right, the cheeseburgers were delicious. We scarfed them down quickly, in case people saw us and were pissed (which was pretty unfounded, considering a guy came out soon after with a snow shovel and shoveled the remains into a garbage can).

A guy later came out with our new food, and said that the lady had hurt herself pretty bad but wanted to make it up to us by giving us free Sonic Blasts. Not being one to refuse Van Wert hospitality, I was like, "Wa-hoo! Free Ice Cream!"

We finished our Round 2 of food and headed for the drive-thru window. There we met the woman, who had obviously been crying. We ordered our blasts and acted really concerned, and, man, was she laying down the guilt. "Yeah, I hurt myself pretty bad. I never felt pain like that before. It was like a flashing light...I'll probably hafta go to the Emergency Room, but I want to give you guy some ice cream first." I was like, "c'mon, just get us the ice cream already, lady..." (not really, but I was thinking it). She went to make our blasts, and we were discussing and praising how great a trip that was, but at some point we decided that we shouldn't be laughing at her misfortune while waiting to get our free guilt-ice cream.

And that was it. We drove the hour and twenty minutes back to BG happy as clams, with bellies full of free road-burgers and ice cream, talking about the wonderfulness of the Saga of Sonic.

I'm not sure if I can ever go back, because my experience will never be as great.

I hope she didn't die.

Here's to you, head-trauma Sonic lady,
--Barry