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Don't Ban Straws (At least not that way)

Wanna know what I have yet to succeed at as a parent?  Teaching kids to drink through straws.  All of the gang here—7 y.o No. One, 5 y.o. No. Two, and 3 y.o. No. Three—learned how to drink from cups immediately after they were weaned with the exception of an intermittent bottle or two.  Sure, there were spills on the table, yeah, occasionally a cup without a lid was knocked to the floor, but much like my quest for the kids to walk with me everywhere rather than resorting to a stroller, we just kept on plugging along.  Consequently, when the kids do try to use straws, straws brought to them by people who really did mean well, it’s been a disaster.  To them, straws clearly work in the same fashion as cups: grasp it with your math, tilt your head and the cup back, and, and, disaster!  For the occasional cup that has a lid perhaps there’s only a small leak.  For cups with open tops… whoops!  There went the whole drink into the lap.

As a result, I hate straws, I hate the decorative little kid’s cups that the straws are generally inserted into, and I’m not a fan of establishments that have either of them, even though, I know they’re just trying to help.

So, when I heard of the efforts springing up around the country to cut straw usage, I was fully and selfishly onboard.  If only there were no more straws, I wouldn’t have to deal with wet laps anymore!  (Admittedly not the most dire of incidents I’ve had to deal with as a parent, but still).  I dreamed of a world where I would never have to discuss with an insistent wait-person that really, we didn’t want straws, and it would really help if they never brought the topic up again.  Then I saw this:



And, well, No!  Just No!  Let’s not create yet another ‘crime’ that people can be thrown in jail or regressively fined for.  This isn’t the way.  If you’d like to light Tiki-torches and march on the home of the CEO of Straws-R-Us… well… fine.  But, please, let’s not create another nonsense crime where more of our compatriots wind up spending time fighting charges, or God forbid, spend time in jail or money buying themselves out via fines and lawyer's fees.

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