Austin Morgan
amorga14@uwyo.edu
“The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. [Things] lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.”
Edgar Allen Poe’s famous passage in his “The Fall of the House of Usher” was meant to describe a gothic mansion of irredeemable horror, but could just as easily describe the inside of Laramie’s Sonic-the place where dreams go to die. What follows is meant to be a warning tale for all those who would think of braving the inside of this establishment and is written in the memory of all those who never made it out.
One afternoon, I decided that I would eat in Sonic’s inner-sanctum-after all, I had never been inside. Like one of the poor saps in Poe’s stories, I scoured the perimeter of the dungeon before truly appreciating the misfortune of my situation.
Despite it being lunchtime, the restaurant was empty. The room was cold, and an icy chill glaciated up my spine as I deliberated at which dilapidated booth I would sit. I chose the least disheveled booth and, using the grease on the seat as lubricant, slid in.
The remnants of partially eaten food on the table turned my stomach, and I promptly wiped the debris onto an equally messy floor. I turned to the menu. Chicken tenders-always a safe bet. I pressed the faded red “order” button and waited for a response. Nothing. The speaker, hanging in an awful catalepsy from a single strand of wire, was silent. “No one can hear you scream in Sonic,” I thought.
After 15 minutes of troubleshooting, there was an “ahem” from behind me. Thank God! Virgil, in the form of a disgruntled waiter, had arrived to be my guide through this hell. While it’s true that all fast food workers are generally unenthused and disillusioned with the prospect of working for 7.25 an hour, this waiter was particularly glum. He looked at me with what I discerned to be an expression of expectation. “Chicken tenders with barbeque sauce,” I whispered. With a nod and a flick of his notepad, my lobotomite of a waiter departed, leaving me alone once again.
Ten minutes later I had my food. As I opened the grease-stained paper bag, I removed the chicken tenders and a single napkin. I reached in the bag expectantly, but my hand met no plastic container of barbeque sauce. I called out for assistance and heard my voice echo through the depressive chasm.
Again, my waiter emerged, and I requested barbeque sauce. He came back with two ketchup packets and went back into the kitchen. Attributing this to an accident, I called again and clarified that I wanted barbeque sauce. I was given mustard and an apology. Like Sisyphus, I was bound to hell.
After finishing my meal, I hastened out the door and into my car. That night, after recounting my experience to several friends, we concluded that dementors were haunting Sonic. It was, after all, the only thing that could explain my terrible experience in what is supposed to be another mundane fast food restaurant. That night, when sleep did not take me, I resolved to warn others of this terror-to write this article. No one else can be permitted to suffer this Sonic psychosis. Indeed, until the management hires an interior decorator to revamp the restaurant’s sad swamp of a dining area and a priest to perform an exorcism, it is beyond me to suggest that anyone ever enter Laramie’s Sonic. In the meantime, I advise that the employees of Sonic strike until there is a sign erected over the doorway that reads thus: “abandon hope all who enter here.”
