Startling Discovery

A new trend has been sweeping through my office which has confused, frightened, and intrigued me. I am hoping that my Midwest and West-Coast Correspondents can report on whether this phenomenon is happening in your areas. The trend involves drinking coffee out of a straw. Not iced coffee, which a normal person could be expected to do but hot coffee.

The first question on my mind, as is probably on the mind of most of my readers, was are these people mentally challenged or undergoing some sort of trauma. To get the answers to my questions I went to the source, two girls named Andrea and Kristina (names have been changed to protect the innocent) from my office who I first spotted drinking hot coffee out of a straw. After a five minute conversation and having them satisfactorily complete a few small physical activities for me, I concluded that they were not mentally challenged. Through my questioning, I learned that they use the straw to prevent their teeth from getting stained from the coffee. Supposedly, by using the straw the coffee gets pushed to the back of their mouth and their teeth can remain sparkley white.

I got the feeling from talking to these girls that they thought I was insane for not using a straw in my coffee. Not more than three weeks after these girls started parading around with their straws in Starbucks cups, every girl in the area bought in to the idea. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George eats a candy bar with a fork and knife. His response to why, "How do you eat a candy bar? With your hands? [snort]" The closest comparison I could come up with to drinking coffee with a straw is to eat a bag of Cheetos while wearing gloves to prevent that cheesy, orange stuff from getting all over your hands. But that defeats the point of eating Cheetos, you're supposed to get the orange stuff all over you. Just like when you drink coffee, your teeth are supposed to get stained. You're telling the world, "Damn right I drink 6 cups a day, and I like it." Your yellow teeth are like trophies you can parade around all day, be proud of your coffee scars.

Anyone who has seen this recently, please post it below. Also, if anyone has been convinced to start using a straw to drink coffee after reading this blog, I'd love to hear that too. However for the record let it be known that I do not condone the activity.