My Town Monday: Sonic

Before beginning this week's My Town Monday (which, I must warn you, is a bit of an odd one), I have some very fun business to take care of...

I'm featured on the Random House Author Spotlight. The same material, but in a slightly different format, is at Random House Kids.

So, uh, Holy Delacorte Press!!

(Note to my sisters: It is meant to be HUMOROUS! I know I'm not actually the most beautiful, etc. Love you lots and lots. xo)
(Note to FaceBook friends: I know this is old news for you guys, but I'd forgotten to post it on blogger)

And, now, an odd My Town Monday...



Last spring, my town of about 60,000 got a Sonic. Big whoop, you might think. Well, apparently it was. You couldn't even get in the main driveway, but got directed around to a side street. And this popularity continued and continued. Inexplicably. I mean, we're just talking burgers and tater tots.

This past weekend, Child #2 and Child #4 begged me to take them to Sonic now that the lineup has died down. Fine. I wanted sushi, but, hey, I'm a good compromiser. It wasn't until we got all situated and parked and ready to push the button to order that my heart started pounding because...


once you drive into the little ordering station, you have to reverse out. And...I had already informed everyone that this was the weekend that I WASN'T DOING ANY BACKING UP because...

I was stuck driving dh's car with its TOTALLY CLOUDY REAR WINDOW THAT YOU CAN'T SEE A SINGLE THING OUT OF. (Dh and Child #3 drove my clear-windowed van to Ontario, CA for Child #3's water polo tournament. (Yes, he played brilliantly, in case you were wondering.) I reminded Child #2 and Child #4 that we had mapped out our weekend to AVOID REVERSING situations.


Yes, I did manage to back out of the ordering area. I did not run over a waiter zipping around on roller blades or smash into another car. I did, however, sweat buckets.

And just when I thought I was home free, I was forced to navigate a complicated orange cone maze that dumped us out....


on a weirdo back street. Seriously, I didn't have a clue where we were. It was like we'd entered a SONIC DIMENSION. We drove FORWARD for a while, until we eventually recognized a street and were able to find our way home.

Dh and Child #3 have returned from their little trip. I now have my van back. I may spend my entire Monday driving around town IN REVERSE! Ha!

And just to show you how quick children are to take advantage of a situation, here a couple of the statements Child #2 and Child #3 said to me over the course of the weekend. And by "said," I mean in a "whispered in an eerie, ghost-story voice."

Child #2: "This is the Sonic Dimension talking. Raise Child #2's allowance. A lot."

Child #4: "The Sonic Dimension wants you to give me another popsicle."

For links to the other MTM participants, please head over to our My Town Monday blog which was set up by the lovely and talented Clair Dickson. Thank you to Travis Erwin for launching us on this crazy My Town Monday journey. A journey from which there is no reversing. (I couldn't resist.) Next week, I'll be back to a normal MTM post. Promise.