The Side Part: Week 8 – A new menu
USATSI
I got my hair cut two days ago. The dude doing the cutting was older. His name was Kip — I’m guessing on the spelling. One of those hip types who wears brown boots, black jeans, wide rimmed glasses, and tries hard to up-sell you on getting some molding clay or defining paste or grooming cream or firming cream or firm hold styling gel or one of the other thousands of names that people give hair stuff. It’ll make it so much fuller. Really gives you a lot of texture. His belt had seashells glued onto it.
Anyway, I always do what I can to get a haircut around the holidays because I know my mom will appreciate it and small talk comes easier around those times of year. I walk-in to get my haircut, I don’t ever make a set appointment, so the person doing the cutting is almost always someone I don’t know at all. If it’s around Christmas or Thanksgiving they’ll always ask if I’m excited for the holidays and that’s a nice, ready-made conversation that’s a lot easier to get in and out of than them asking me how I like my job or me having to explain to them who Stoney LaRue is when they ask what kind of music I like.
Kip started asking me if I was excited for Christmas and I said yes. He was excited about it, too. He wondered where I’d be going for it. I said back home to Oklahoma. There was a television in the room turned over to SportsCenter and as I was staring at it he asked me to readjust my head. He let that sit for a minute and then asked me what my favorite sport was. I said basketball. His eyes got wide.
“Oh, you must be a Thunder fan then,” he said.
“I am,” I said.
“You guys got a good team down there,” he said, “The Bulls are depressing me this year.”
“Yea. Y’all can’t get Rose healthy.”
“It’s sad to see. Especially knowing with him at full strength we’d have a shot.”
“Yea. I felt the same way when Westbrook went down last year.”
“You guys got off lucky.”
“How so?”
“That way you felt. We’re going to wind up feeling that way for three straight post-seasons probably. Now his camp’s all pissed about how the Bulls are rebuilding.”
I say nothing.
“That Marquis Teague is so bad,” he said.
I gave him a nice tip and bought some American Crew Grooming Cream on my way out the door.
* * *
KD’s Southern Cuisine opened up recently and, as Ball Don’t Lie’s Kelly Dwyer pointed out, there was a massive lack of puns on the menu. Thought we should take a look at what part of the menu might have looked like if Durant and his people decided to get pun-happy.
Entrees:
Reggietable Lasagna
Reggietable Medley
Derek Fish N Chips
Surf N Perk
Rumble Steaks
Brian Keefe Tenderloin
Scott Brook Trout
Andre RoberSundaland noodlefish
Jeremy Lamb Chops
Rex Mex Top Shelf Fajitas
Side Dishes:
Thabotatoes and gravy
Tater Scotts
Steamed Reggietables
Gomefries
Reggie JackSun Dried Tomatoes
Sweet Thabotatoe Fries
Lamb Fries
Hashbrowns
Russell Sprouts
Candied Lambs
Drinks:
Surge
Perrier
JeRemy Martin
Grant Long Island Iced Tea
Deserts:
Perry’s Jubilee
And then these from Royce:
Durantchovies.
Steven Adams Winter Lager
Kevinison
Nick CollardGreens
I lie awake at night with my head in my hands and Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” playing throughout my apartment over having not thought of “Durantchovies”. It’s a perfect pun. Nobody likes anchovies. That’s why Zack Morris always put them on the pizzas he’d order for Slater. I loathe anchovies, but if you could order a large pizza with Durantchovies I feel comfortable saying I would order that pizza for every meal I ate there. Royce also doesn’t understand why they wouldn’t name the restaurant KD’s RestDurant, which is, really, a fantastic point and one that will cue the end credits.
