An Open Letter to Sonic Drive-In

March 20, 2016                     

Sonic Drive-In

300 Johnny Bench Dr

Oklahoma City OK 73104

Dear Sonic,

If taken literally, your promise to deliver “service with the speed of sound” has never been fulfilled but my experience generally has been service with an acceptable wait. Any wait when you are hungry is hard to endure, but our food always arrived well before we began to think concretely about cannibalism. Just as I was thinking, “Please, please, please, we’re dying out here!” two feet would appear under the sign and happiness would ensue. 

It was the promise implicit in your name that brought us to your Springville, Utah store.  We had left an event in a neighboring town and the children, hepped up on adrenalin from being a part of a huge celebration for the new LDS temple, didn’t want to go straight home.  They wanted a treat. As we drove by the BYU Creamery we saw a huge line and, remembering past waits in the ice cream line, decided to go a little further out from the venue and find a treat closer to home. We pulled into the parking lot at Sonic and saw six or seven cars at the drive-up window and several parking spots open. I decided I didn’t feel like idling for 10 minutes so I pulled into a parking spot, ordered, and paid.  And waited.  

At the point where, on any other visit, those two feet would appear under the sign, my seven year old daughter announced that she had to go to the bathroom. We had never had this issue at Sonic before so I didn’t even know if they *had* a public restroom. Plus I thought our food was imminent and I could neither send my 7 year old alone to find a bathroom nor leave my other daughter alone in the car while we did. And what would happen if our food came and nobody was in the car? I asked her if she could possibly hold it just a little longer. At 25 minutes into our wait I pushed the red button again to see if our order had been lost. He assured me they were working on it and would bring it out as soon as they could. 

At 30+ minutes, we all got out of the car and went to the door of the kitchen. A man in a headset came out quickly to see what we wanted. I told him about my daughter’s bathroom need and how long we had been waiting for our food. At this point we had spent 45 minutes trying to get out the parking lot of the Marriott Center not because it took that long to exit after an event but because the car at the head of the lane I had parked in was not willing to inch forward and nuzzle his way into the lane of cars that had a direct exit onto the road. Essentially, he was waiting for the entire parking lot to empty before trying to get out and we were all held captive by the parked cars on either side of our doomed line. It was incredibly infuriating. Also, we had been up and working on the presentation at the Marriott Center since 6 that morning.  You can imagine, then, how exhausted I was at 10:30 pm. You can imagine how forcefully I let the guy in the headset know how unacceptable this long wait was. He asked which order was ours and assured us he would hurry things along. We went to the bathroom and then back to the car thinking that at any minute our order would arrive. It would take another 15 minutes. 

I was pretty much boiling by the time those two feet appeared. She explained that there had been a large event (which we well knew) and that they had hoped some people would give up and leave but nobody did. I told her that we absolutely would have left if they hadn’t already TAKEN OUR MONEY. Also, did the people at the drive-up window wait 45 minutes to an hour? She was silent on that point but I knew they hadn’t. So as we sat there waiting for our food, who knows how many people butted ahead of us in line simply because we chose to park instead of idle? Is this honestly how Sonic does business? Choosing to turn off your car (an environmentally friendly thing we are encouraged to do) means choosing to be the LAST priority? You don’t have to answer that because I already know it is true. Not only did I watch it play out in front of my eyes, I crowd sourced it on Facebook. It’s not just a Springville, Utah thing. It’s a Sonic thing. And it is completely unacceptable.

With Special Thanks to Brene Brown for the Vocabulary

The best part about being on a contentious chatboard was firing off a blood-rushing, eye-brow pulsing ball of righteous indignation. With the personal element removed, everything was stunningly black and white.  Anyone who disagreed was obviously an idiot (or worse). These no-holds-barred conversations were more about high-fiving people on my team than about changing anyone's mind on key issues and that was fine. This was a good, old-fashioned, adrenalin-filled snowball fight: keep throwing until you run out of ammunition and then take a look around to see who is still standing. I did that for several years before deciding to bow out.

It was actually pretty hard to walk away from the snowball fight because I love a good rush of adrenalin.  But these were not powdery snowballs, disintegrating as they flew and landing with a playful thump.  These were icy snowballs--hard packed snow wrapped around a chunk of ice, frozen again, and lobbed, rapid-fire, at somebody's head. They were words said in anger and received in anger among strangers who didn't have any reason to trust each other. When I looked at it objectively it was a waste of time and energy.

Eventually I stopped having off-the-cuff snowball fights in real life too. In the spirit of choosing my battles, I chose silence.  I couldn't trust that people would be generous in their assumptions as I worked through my thoughts out loud. In political and religious discussions, people rarely are.  Here in Utah there is no subject where this is more true than homosexuality and the LDS church.  Think you know my thoughts on this subject?  I doubt you do.  But I'm not choosing silence today.  And the reason I'm not is because I want to trust you.

I've moved around a bit in my life but now, for the first time in my adult life, I'm really putting down roots.  I've had ties to Utah my whole life, went to BYU as an undergrad, and have visited Utah County for major holidays for 20+ years but I still feel a bit new around town because it was only a few years ago that we moved here with no intention of moving away.  So I have long time long-distance friends that I'm figuring out close-proximity friendship with and I have formerly-close-proximity friends that I'm figuring out long-distance friendship with. I also have a big group of new friends that I am building trust with.  I love the metaphor for building trust that Brene Brown uses in her talk The Anatomy of Trust: a jar of marbles.

I am very aware, lately, of the small things that add or take away marbles from your friendship/trust jar--simply showing up (or simply not showing up), answering a text (or letting silence shut down the conversation), speaking your mind with compassion (or speaking your mind in anger). It's that last one that has been cutting deeply in the past few weeks.  Like the contentious chatboard, social media creates an environment where you have niche conversations with like-minded people that are actually broadcast widely.  I'd like to believe that if you were looking right at my face you would choose your words more carefully but the reality is that you didn't.  And you lost marbles from your jar.  Those of you who had precious few marbles left lost your jar entirely.

It's not just people who have jars; institutions can earn or lose trust too.  This is why even though I was shocked and upset when I read the updated pages of the LDS church handbook that were leaked in November, I did not denounce anything or anyone.  The church has earned a lot of marbles with me.  I wholeheartedly believe that a prophet of God is on the earth. That is not something to take lightly. I also believe in taking time to see the whole picture and to let things percolate in my brain (I'm still in that process currently).

I love all of you--those who have lost the very last marble in their church jar, those whose jars are overflowing, those who live in a black-and-white world, and those who truly see where the colors blend.  I welcome a thoughtful, in-person discussion with any one of you.  But leave your icy snowballs--your snarky memes, your hateful language, your assertions that "in the Last Days more persecution will come from within the church than without"--out in the cold where they belong.



P.S. Apologies to those who thought I was going to weigh in on the specifics of the controversy online. I thought I was going to as well. Turns out I wasn't.

Nothing Kills an Evening Like Being Denied a Krispy Kreme

Bedtime Stories

Timpanogos Storytelling Festival

August 30, 2013

Provo, Utah

Nothing could be more pleasant than sitting in the cool canyon breezes and being entertained by delightful storytellers.  Well, nothing except ending the aforementioned evening with a Krispy Kreme donut.  This is why the Bedtime Stories event at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival has been a favorite event for my little family over the years.  Imagine my pain, then, when we wandered up to the donut table as usual and after handing a donut to each of my sweet girls they did not hand one to me. 

“Are there no donuts for Mommies?” I asked jovially (such a ridiculous question, I know!)

The overly cheery reply should have tipped me off that this was no joke.  “We have coupons for buy a dozen get a dozen free at the end of the table!”

“Seriously.  There aren’t any donuts for Mommies?”  This could not be happening.  I know I’m not 5 years old, but I do have a heart.  And a stomach.  And you’re dangling my favorite donut right there in front of my face.  And I’m starving.  And this really isn’t the time of month to be denying me sugar.  (Not to get too personal or anything.)  And, by the way, I have a ticket just like my kids do.  In fact, I paid for all of the tickets.  And the advertising for this event just said that donuts would be served after the readings, not that parents would be arbitrarily denied donuts just because they are old enough to drive their children to this event, pay for the tickets for this event, supervise their children at this event, herd their children through the long line for this event, and keep their children from throwing their napkins on the ground after this event.  I think I’m a person you want to keep happy, folks, and this can be accomplished by GIVING ME A DONUT.

Bigger smile: “We have coupons at the end of the table!”

“Are you telling me there are no donuts for Mommies?”  Yes.  That is in fact what they were telling me.  Move on, sister.  The pain was compounded when I discovered that the other mommies in my group just took a donut without waiting to be served one and therefore only got the stink eye from the volunteers.  I should have been more brazen.  (In fact, I was more brazen when they were packing up the MANY MANY boxes of leftover donuts at the end.  I walked right up and said, “NOW are there donuts for Mommies?”  There were.)

I feel better now that I’ve gotten that off my chest.

Like I said, I love this event.  I love the venue.  I love the smiles and the laughs and the look of sheer delight on my children’s faces.  Love it.  My daughter is a budding writer and I feel like I am feeding her start too by coming to something like this.

The Bedtime Stories event is aimed at kids and features a mix of adult storytellers and kids.  I asked my kids which was their favorite and we all agreed: the little boy who told the story “Don’t Let the Pigeon Ride the Bus.”  It’s no surprise, really, because we love the book.  The little boy (Bridger Backus) was so tiny—five?—but he certainly held his own on stage, especially considering the storyteller he followed (Carmen Deedy).  She was from Cuba and was the most engaging of all of the storytellers.  Her story, a call and repeat tale about a rooster and his diamond button, was hilarious because of her asides and the opportunity we had to be a part of the story.  Each of the little girls pounded their fists with gusto: “Give me back my diamond button!” and we learned the important lesson that “he who has the king’s underwear has the king’s attention.”  I get the feeling she wanted us to apply this to current events and instigate a Political Panty Raid.  Or maybe she had just read one of my favorite British children's picture books, "The Queen's Knickers."

The little boy’s story also included audience participation but because it was a well known story, no instruction was necessary.  We all knew to shout out “NO!” every time the pigeon made his request.  He was so cute in his pigeon costume and didn’t seem to have even one misstep (or maybe just one).  We were all quite taken with him. 

Two other child storytellers (older) performed as well as two more adults.  My older daughter and I were engaged the whole time, but my 4 year old lost interest after the pigeon (she and her cousin had a delightful time shooting plastic arrows at my head for the rest of the evening).  Leah Jacobsen and Mason Watts were fun storytellers with stories that had a humorous twist.  Laura Pershin Raynor told a delightful story of growing up by a zoo and dreaming of lollipops that were “bigger than my head.”  I loved the image of falling asleep to the sounds of lions roaring and the visceral image of biking home with the sticky mess of a lollipop under her arm.  I think there was a collective shudder along the entire row when she told us that!  Ed Stivender told the sweet tale of “The Man in the Moon in Love” and ended with the crowd-pleasing 50 Ways to Fool Your Mother (moral of the story: you can’t fool your mother.  This went over well with the Mommy Crowd.  Also, you can’t go wrong when an older white guy really commits to performing a rap.  It’s just funny.  I’m sure someday I will tire of it, but this was not that day.)  My daughter was especially pleased with Ed’s performance because he also came to her school earlier in the week and did a special assembly (which she tells me was equally funny and wonderful).  Thank you, Ed, for taking the time to go out to the schools!

It was after this that, full of laughter and smiles, we wandered down for donuts (see above rant).  But after the donut debacle we had a pleasant end to the evening, chatting in the beautiful park while our kids played tag, pleased to have heard people play with language with just as much wild abandon.  We must go to more events next year!  And I’ll bring my own sugar.