Stupor-Sonic

I just had to laugh...a lot. Yes, the Sonic Drive-In whose sign I make fun of on a regular basis is at it again. Today when I drove by, it said:

SUPERSONIC
ANDRINGS
$3.99

I've never had "andrings" before, have you? I wonder if they taste like chicken...

And I bet if you asked the sign dude, he'd say "umm...delicious." (Go here if you don't get the joke.) The funny part is that there was plenty of room on the sign, but absolutely no effort was made to separate the "and" from the "rings."

(Also, as Dave Barry might say, "Supersonic Andrings" would be an excellent name for a rock band.)

But wait--there's more! On my way back, I got to see the other side of the sign, which was almost priceless:

TRY ARE
NEW
MINT BLAST

So I'm trying to decide: Is the sign dude (or dudette, maybe) from a foreign country and just learning English, or is he just a functionally illiterate American? At any rate, I wonder if the managers have any idea how ignorant it makes them look--not that I'm complaining, mind you, because they've now given me blog-fodder for three months in a row.

Oh well--at least they're not serving hungry coneys anymore.

MORE RANDOM STUFF FROM THE DAY: A quick conversation this morning at the Starbucks in Super Target as I read my paper...

STARBUCKS WORKER: Where did you happen to find a newspaper?
ME: Umm...in my front yard.

OK, that wasn't as odd as the response to the mayonnaise question, but it threw me for a second; I thought you could get a newspaper almost everywhere in suburban Dallas. The way it was phrased made it sound like today's paper was as rare as the first issue of Superman comics or something. Her explanation clarified things, though: it turns out that a lot of people come in looking for a paper, and the Super Target Starbucks don't sell any. Still, it was the weirdest question I was asked all day...

THE SPLAT HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD?: As I left my last school today, the director suggested to me that I should leave pretty quickly so I wouldn't get caught up in the "flower war" they were having next period behind the school by our parking lot. I was thinking that was a pretty sissy name for a war (political correctness run amok?) until I realized he meant it was a flour war, as in a reenactment of the American Revolution using flour fired out of toy muskets (or maybe they just throw it at each other?). That didn't exactly sound like something I wanted to get all over Kevmobile 1.2, so I did in fact beat a hasty retreat. On my way out, I noticed that two of the characters were already there--just like in the famous painting, there were the snare drummer and...the trumpet player? Wait a minute--there wasn't a trumpet player in that picture! I guess they couldn't scare up anyone to play piccolo--or was it a fife? Good fife players aren't exactly a dime a dozen, ya know. At any rate, I hope they had fun being messy without me.

BLOW OUT THE CANDLES: Happy birthday to Chris C., Wyatt and Andrew D. (the latter two born in the exact same year).