Along with seeing the Hanson Brothers and the Spice Girls in concert, one of our greatest longings in life still not achieved at the ages of 26 and 27, was going to a Sonic restaurant. We had seen countless hilarious commercials involving two people in their car enjoying delicious Sonic food and drink, but were unaware of any Sonics outside of Seattle (groan).
Finally, though, we found one in little Lancaster, Pennsylvania right next door to an Amish furniture store and an outlet mall. While celebrating our good fortune (and being able to now focus wholly on getting Spice Girls reunion tour tickets), we thought we'd dedicate our first Sonic experience with snapshots worthy of the comical end shots of every Sonic commercial we've ever seen. 
Gabby, Harmony, and Olympia serenaded us through the (free) tour of the process of making delicious milk chocolate. They sang about the mooo-vement of cocoa beans from tropical regions and acoustically utter-ed to us explanations of the breaking and conching processes that go into making Hershey's chocolate.
At the end of our tour, Hershey's version of the Wal-Mart greeters lured us down the gift shop by giving free Hershey's Bliss bites. We couldn't resist the massive assortment of Hershey's products at the gift shop (including a five-pound chocolate bar and a t-shirt that reads, "I traded my brother for a Hershey's"), and bought a bottle of Reese's Peanut Butter cup ice cream sauce for $2.65. At the local grocery store later that night we found the same bottle for $1.89. Time for more coupon-clipping to make up for this appreciable loss.
Without knowing the extent of our fiduciary mistake, we indulged in creamy, rich Hershey's chocolate milkshakes for mid-morning snacks. Our chocolate cravings had then been satisfied and we thought we should burn off the extra calories with a little exercise. The game was trying to form your body into the shape of a Hershey building. Kathi's demonstration of the Hershey smokestacks took first prize. The picture of Chad imitating the corkscrew rollercoaster is, unfortunately, not family-friendly, but it did take second prize.
The campaign trail swept through State College last weekend, giving us an opportunity to really "get to know" the candidates. Bill Clinton came to town on a dreary Thursday evening to speak in the gymnasium in Chad's building. 6,100 people withstood the rain waiting in line for as long as 5 hours to hear this ex-president talk about how wonderful the wife that he was unfaithful to would be for the country (not expressing our views - just stating the obvious). We did not feel like standing in the rain, but Chad does suffer from ES3 (see earlier post), so we waited in Chad's office. Thinking that Chad's status as graduate student (that shares a normal-sized office with four others) and his knowledge of the Recreation Building on campus gave us an edge on the "normal people" that stood in the rain waiting to get in.
Penn State expressed its political neutrality by, while setting Bill Clinton up in a rickety old gym (capacity 6,000), giving Barack Obama a podium on the steps of the campus' most famous building, Old Main (capacity - limitless). So we rushed home after church on Sunday morning to get to Barack's early afternoon speech.
Penn State offensive tackle, Gerald Cadogan, kicked things off with the national anthem. Gerald is a great student-athlete and a great person. We pretend to know him because he goes to our church and he said hi to Kathi once during the "greet one another" time one Sunday morning. Chad was so jealous at not getting to greet him that he marked the "needs prayer support" box in the friendship bulletin that went down our pew later in the service.
Penn State cornerback, Lydell Sargeant, who does not go to our church, followed Gerald's Stars and Stripes by introducing Obama. Lydell is one of numerous Nittany Lions football players that have been arrested in the past year. However, he totally redeemed himself by presenting Obama with a brand new Penn State football jersey (staunchly conservative Coach Paterno couldn't have been too happy about this).
We left the speech early (we really don't have political views yet), and spent our time much more wisely - cutting coupons from the free newspapers in the public library (insert Dutch/frugal joke here). We did feel a little guilty skipping out. But on our walk home we overheard numerous conversations from students that attended the talk. We heard comments like, "No, I don't think he's a Muslim," and, "Is he really Dick Cheney's cousin?", which made us realize that we didn't miss much.
Our second impression, however, overshadowed the first. After losing the smooth Maryland pavement under our tires and our second lane of traffic, we proceeded into the city limits of Berkeley Springs. As we approached the first stop sign in this quaint mountain village, we came upon a pregnant woman smoking a cigarette as she crossed the street towards the elementary school. Kathi commented on how sad that was while Chad thought to himself, "it's probably a non-filtered cig - some people are so lazy." 
Kathi's initial thought was, "I really like the camouflage cargo shorts you ladies have on - they really go well with the paint on your faces. But I don't like your attitudes. So we'll pray for you" (she gets that from her mother). Chad's initial thought was, "C'mon guys, as the commercial says, 'Virginia is for Lovers.' It sounds like you left your love in Missouri." It's probably better off that neither of us voiced our thoughts and instead just thanked our new friends for their willingness to initiate conversation. 
We christened our second "safari" through the mining state with a burping contest (appropriate for the culture). Usually Kathi wins these competitions in a landslide, but Chad overcame his genetically constricted esophagus and won with a 5-second belch. Gloating in his victory, Chad focused on the natural beauty this time through the state while Kathi slept. We think we can understand why John Beilein and Rich Rodriguez wanted to leave - even if it was a move to Ann Arbor.
Sensory overload hit us as we entered the west end of Downtown Disney. Next door to Planet Hollywood and across the street from the House of Blues, a four-story Virgin Records store hung a three-story poster of the Backstreet Boys on one wall (there's only four of them now - not five. They should be called the Backstreet Men and they look more and more like the Village People every time we see them (isn't one of them gay?)).
After telling Kath who it was (she thought his name was C.C. Sobania - she's a big baseball fan, too), Chad had two decisions to make. First, does he go up to and talk to him (Carlson's have an shameful history of doing this - just ask Tom Izzo - and Chad probably would have told him he liked the JaMarcus Russell jersey he was wearing, even though Chad hates the Raiders and doesn't think Russell will last very long in the league) or does he take a picture of the major leaguer. He chose the latter, leaving another decision: use the camera phone in his pocket or lunge for our digital camera. While fumbling around for both, a voice hit us that changed everything.
John, a later middle-aged man surrounded by an aura of "used car salesman," greeted us shortly after our 8:30am appointment time. After exchanging pleasantries (John asking us where we were from and judging how capable we were of buying a time-share) John introduced us to our "tour guide" Carol. Carol must have been a relative of John's because she, too, had "desperate salesperson" in her DNA. She was very kind and personable, but her gaudy, gold-sequined blazer belied her true intentions of our "tour."
While taking us through an "awesome" unit, Carol continually reassured us that she knew we weren't going to buy a unit now because Chad is still a student. However, Carol was using another psychological tool called "reverse psychology" on us (see Michael Scott from the Office) because she really wanted us to buy (like that was ever in doubt).
Go West: The One with the Stats...
1 year ago