I apologize but it’s a quick post this evening. Our daughter demanded some tender loving care, which was overdue—and the day stopped being mine late-afternoon. She is time well spent.
We walked to Sonic, uncustomarily, because it’s a Fifties/Sixties-style carhop joint. We brought no car, which made ordering food on my phone almost ridiculous. To check-in, I had to designate a stall; Sonic provided no lobby option. So. we stood in No. 4, and someone roller-skated out with the meal.
Around lunchtime today, when walking home from Von’s supermarket with cheap canned cat food, I got a hankering for a Sonic burger. We rarely eat out and the fast-food place was one of my father-in-law’s favorites. I thought to simultaneously see how the take-out experience has changed and to venture down memory lane. Surprise doesn’t enough express what I found or—stated differently—didn’t.
I stepped inside the restaurant to see chairs stacked on tables in fashion to cordon off most of the dining room. The menu screens were dark, as was the overall ambience. I could enter because roller-skating servers (e.g. carhops) exit through the same doors to deliver meals to parked vehicles. I vamoosed.