The Popcorn Stand: This straw should really stir the drink

The old fuddy, duddy has noticed our society has gotten lazier and lazier and now one of the last bastions of hard work seems to be going by the wayside: Drinking a thick milk shake with a straw.

Last week, I wrote about how I was upset McDonald’s had unveiled not just its traditional Shamrock Shake, but five versions of the Shamrock Shake. I wasn’t upset McDonald’s had unveiled five Shamrock Shakes, but that it unveiled the shakes before Valentine’s Day. I also became enraged when the day before Valentine’s Day, I saw my first Easter commercial.

But that’s not what I wanted to write about. It seems McDonald’s has come up with this technological marvel — a J-shaped straw — that makes it a lot easier to drink a milk shake. I have to admit I don’t think I’ve ever finished a really thick milk shake with a straw in my life.

I actually finish drinking the shake without a straw. Or, I have to admit as a last resort if it’s really necessary, I get up to get a spoon. Now it looks like I may not even have to do that.

McDonald’s actually went to Facebook Live to host a 20-minute session on how to use the new straw. Twenty minutes? I think I’ve managed the technique of using a straw. But this invention has actually been compared to the likes of an Apple-style creation, so maybe 20 minutes wasn’t enough.

And McDonald’s couldn’t come up with a simple name for the straw, referring to it as the “Suction Tube for Reverse Axial Withdrawal,” aka STRAW. Of course, I guess I shouldn’t be talking since I refer to myself as the Executive Assistant Editor of the Sierra Nevada Media Group, Nevada Appeal Division, Newsroom Branch.

And, of course, it’s not a coincidence McDonald’s introduced this new fangled invention in time for its Shamrock Shakes for St. Patrick’s Day before Valentine’s day. Ugh.

McDonald’s also got all sciency when it stated “it’s a marvel of fluid dynamics. Thanks Fibonacci sequence.”

So apparently this straw is the greatest thing since sliced bread, which begs the question what was the greatest thing since sliced bread before sliced bread?

Of course, George Carlin correctly stated sliced bread isn’t that great of a thing. It’s bread and you slice it.

And now thanks to McDonald’s we want have to slice through our shakes.

— Charles Whisnand