The other night, I had a dream that the entire Duke men's basketball team went to McDonald's.
(Note: Not really, but bear with me.)
They pulled up in front of the restaurant-all of them (except the various walk-ons) in Coach K's Big Blue Bus-and got out. Immediately, Coach K turned around, and he looked at Marty Pocius and Brian Zoubek. He said, "Hey Marty, Brian, maybe you guys should just stay in the bus for the next 40 minutes, we'll bring you out a small fries or something, and you can split it. Okay?"
Coach K tossed the keys at an assistant coach, who tossed them at a manager, and the manager parked the bus.
So all of them headed into the restaurant, and there were a lot of empty tables. Naturally, all of the players looked at team captain Josh McRoberts to pick the best table. McRoberts McPointed out a table with his arm fully extended, just like he does after every made basket.
They walked up to the counter to order, but Lance Thomas was so eager to get there that he accidentally knocked over a few of the other McDonald's patrons before he even ordered. Coach K told him that maybe he should go sit in the bus for a little bit.
After the rest of the team ordered, they sat down at the table and decided they would have a speed-eating contest.
(A group of guys wearing "Krzyzew's Chefs" aprons were in the kitchen cooking up burgers and fries. But no one thought they were funny, or particularly clever, and everyone wished they would just take those dumb aprons off and dress like regular people-er, McDonald's cooks. Everyone agreed that if someone were to wear such a get-up to a basketball game, that he or she would look really, really dumb.)
Gerald "The Plumber" Henderson (because he always flushes the ball straight down when he dunks) started really slowly, possibly due to his sprained ankle, but everyone agreed that he was a talented eater and would really come on strong in the end.
McRoberts kept trying to give his burger and fries to everyone else-he just didn't want to eat his food himself. Then Coach K made him eat, so he did.
For some reason, Dave McClure didn't even want to eat his burger. He spent the entire time at the restaurant attempting to shove food in everyone else's mouth and take it away from the other patrons. He was pretty good at it, too, and whenever anyone missed their mouth with a bite, he was always right there to snatch it up.
Greg Paulus kept dropping fries, and Chris Collins made him stop eating. Then, Collins talked to him outside the restaurant, and afterwards, Paulus was eating just fine again.
Jon Scheyer's burger must have smelled funny or something. He ate at a steady pace, but he kept making all these really weird faces. Despite his obvious eating talent, everyone had a hard time taking him seriously.
The burgers and fries were flying, and they were making a huge mess on the floor. A few of the managers, who (of course) wore their suits to McDonald's, started scrubbing the floors on their hands and knees, just so that no one would slip.
Henderson was coming on strong, and he slammed his burger straight down into his mouth, just like the dunks. The restaurant patrons started chanting "FLUSH IT DOWN! FLUSH IT DOWN!"
Meanwhile, Zoubek was furiously waving his towel inside the bus and generally looking thrilled to be in the parking lot.
Of course, Coach K was the fastest eater. He wolfed down his burger and all but eight of his fries and had an insurmountable lead (though perhaps he was helped by the fact that the managers opened all of his ketchup packets before he even asked them to.) But then, wanting to make sure that he didn't drop any of the fries (which would have meant an automatic disqualification), he went into a stall technique and started taking tiny bites.
Then, someone knocked over his drink, and he had to scramble. By the time he started eating again, everyone else had almost caught up.
But in the end, Coach K won the eating contest. After all, he has won 769 of them.
And at the end of the meal, McClure took out all of the trash.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.