It is a bit of a trek for us to get there but that makes it more of a "spending quality time together" event. These events usually begin by me turning to my husband and declaring, "I cannot spend another moment cooped up in this house with these people. We need to get them out of my house." And so with this proclamation, our adventure begins.
Highway travel is involved and this is good as the R.A. does enjoy a pleasant trip down the interstate. As we proceed he yowls joyfully in the backseat, hands flapping for Britain. I think the R.A. associates the highway with going some place he likes and/or we're finally driving him down to NASA to be launched back into space. Hope springs eternal.
Another Sonic selling point is location, location, location. Sonic is located right next door to McD's! It's not possible to get better than that. Ok, the only thing better would be to have a McD's located inside the Sonic. But hey, I'm not going to complain. When we first started going to Sonic we would pull into McD's and then go to Sonic but recently we have streamlined the process. We go straight to Sonic and place our order. While we wait for our food, my husband hoofs it next door to McD's and picks up the requisite french fries and chicken nuggets, and ketchup (although to be sure we also ask for extra ketchup at Sonic too. One can never be too careful about such important things.)
The R.A. enjoys Sonic. He sits in his car seat and takes in all the cars and people coming and going. The R.A. is so busy trying to not miss a thing that he actually looks like he is attempting to do the Twist while strapped into his seat - twisting first to the right and then the left and back again. As the R.A. is totally preoccupied he rarely eats any of the McD meal his father has dashed across two busy parking lots (mostly occupied by teenage drivers - yikers!) to get for him. Just because, however, the R.A. does not eat the meal does not mean we are excused from getting it. We have only made that mistake a handful of times before we learned better. The McD meal is not really about eating. It's more part of the entire Sonic procedure. Remove the McD fries and nuggets and we've upset the entire system. Trust me - we don't want that.
What the R.A. will eat when we are at Sonic are Sonic apple slices. Witnessing the consumption of apple slices while he rotates around his car seat is a sight to see. It's amazing any of the apple actually makes it into his mouth. But it does. Initially we gave the R.A. the mandatory "see we are trying to encourage kids to eat healthy by giving them these stupid" apple slices that came with his sister's Sonic kids' meal. Of course, the minute we did that my daughter, up to then an avid fruitarian**, declared she loved the apple slices and felt inclined not to share with her brother. Now we order a separate pack of slices for the R.A. and I'll warrant we are the only Sonic customers to ever do so because every time we do there's this pause from the person taking our order and then he/she will ask incredulously, "You want a separate side order of apple slices?"
Another thing I love about Sonic is that it is currently the only time I ever get to eat a moderately warm meal while in the presence of my entire family. I confess that despite being a parent for going on 9 years, I still haven't adjusted to cold french fries. I know, it's the prima dona in me.
Oddly enough (like most things about us) we tend to go to Sonic more in the colder weather than warm. This is primarily because once the cold weather hits, the number of places I can take these people becomes limited. It's not unusual to see us bundled up and hunched over our burgers (and apple slices) in a chilly and fog steamed up car in the middle of winter - cold yet content. As long as there is a Sonic around I will not have a winter of discontent. Or at least I'll get a couple hours worth of a break. I'll take it!
*Ok, maybe I won't get high marks in the Mother of the Year contest, Nutrition category but allow me to submit that if either of the First Lady's daughters were like the R.A. and had his food issues she would drive that kid personally to McD's, Secret Service be damned!
**A fruitarian is someone who does not eat fruit based on moral and ethical reasons, citing it cruel to force children to consume anything vaguely nutritious. The average age of a fruitarian is eight.
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