Yeah I don’t know what liking ice in drinks and using straws has to do with being “obnoxiously precious” and “off”.
I carry my own metal straws because people have bought them for me as gifts and I actually need them on occasion in many places now.
In 2015 I spent over $16,000 getting all of my top teeth capped and have since had to deal with increased sensitivity.
Hence the use of straws.
I use straws so much that I actually worry about getting invited to a State Dinner or such. Will they serve my iced tea or water in wine glasses so I don’t look out of place? Does a straw even work in a wine glass? Seems too long. Can I even get an iced tea? And those thin straws you often get in bars - gotta have two or three. Did you know you can take one of those thin straw/stirrers and cut it with your pocket knife at a high angle and make two very workable toothpicks? That’s probably right out at a State Dinner. Probably be frisked going in anyway. Did you know you can take a regular diameter straw and 3 thin straws and make an actual lethal weapon? I haven’t tried it yet, though.
Seems like straws, maybe, are not your biggest problem.
Tell them you can do a magic trick with a pencil. That’ll go over even better. 
LOL ! No, I think straws are it. My wife likes straws also. She will ask for a straw when drinking from a can. “Do you know what has been on that can?” I think that is sacrilege. She keeps a couple of straws in the car ever since someone forgot to include straws at a fast food pickup. A plastic fork and spoon also. The other day I came home with drinks (with straws) from Freddies. She examined the straw then swapped it out for a longer straw from the kitchen straw holder. Extra long, black, standard diameter. Good choice. If I see just one of you guys making a joke about “extra long, black, standard diameter” …
That doesn’t make any sense. There are any number of things that people don’t use in their dining rooms that they do when out. And most people aren’t drinking the kinds of drinks that use straws when they are at home.
Hey, I have straws, forks and spoons in my car, too.
Not to mention the roll of paper towel.
Always prepared.
My straw preference is the red Sonic straw. I do collect them. Or did. I have bags of them.
Last I used them, I cut them in chunks, gave the kids yarn and they strung them in long strands. Made a bead curtain with them.
Life is never dull at the Becky mansion.
I don’t mean to be snarky (or hijacky); what kinds of things do people use when they’re out that they don’t use at home?The only thing that comes to mind is those wet wipes for your hands.
Back on topic; I agree they are low hanging fruit in the big picture but every little bit helps. The paper straws that are manufactured today work every bit as well; there should be no need to make plastic ones.
Any examples? I’m hard pressed to think of a single beverage served in restaurants that most people don’t drink at home. Am I wrong in assuming that the vast majority of straws are used for the same soft drinks people consume at home without a straw?
I think the difference is in a restaurant (especially a fast food restaurant) the beverage is served in a waxed paper cup with a plastic lid. Without the lids, the cups are light and tippy, but I’ve knocked over ones with lids and fortunately there was little or no mess.
I see the need for lids, but there are lids that can be sipped through. The sipping hole can be used for a straw if one insists on using one. I have no idea why the vast majority of lids have the straw hole in the center.
Me either. They should make the opening on the rim, like the cups they put coffee in. It would be a good step to eliminating straws.
Yes exactly. No one drinks from flimsy waxed paper cups at home but that’s what they have in most fast food/fast casual/anything that’s not a sit-down table-service restaurant.
If we’re talking about beverages from fast food places taken on the go …
An annoyance with coffee and a sippy-lid is that to drink, you have to hold the cup with the sippy part facing your lower lip. Easy at a table, harder while driving when you’re reaching for the cup mostly without looking. Hence the various complicated shapes of sippy lids so you can use your mouth & lips to feel your way around to the correct orientation before tipping back the cup and drenching yourself instead of drinking. If it was practical to drink hot beverages with a straw, that would be the more sensible option from a convenience and spill-proofing POV.
For cold beverages, a central straw solves the orientation problem. Switching cold beverages to sippy lids would of course work, but adds the orientation problem to them too.
The other issue is ice cubes. If you put a sippy lid on a 12oz or 16 or larger cup full of ice and soda then tip it back to take a big swig, the weight of the ice may well pop the lid off. Oops. So another functional advantage to straws is they eliminate the need to tip the cup much or at all.
Lastly, hot beverages tend to be sipped or taken in small swallows, while cold ones tend to be taken in mouth-filling gulps. Doing the big swig from a flimsy cup tilted back is just asking for the ice and or lid to come apart and douse you. Conversely, you can take a very large draw from a straw confident the ice won’t come blasting out of the cup.
@LSLGuy pointed out some problems with that idea. I’m wondering if plastic straws are any more of a problem than plastic lids would be, if they were shaped and sturdy enough that people could drink through them directly.
nm, it was covered later.
When I was young, all straws were paper. And nobody was complaining about it.
You had paper straws? Luxury!
Only if we went somewhere special like Howard Johnson’s.