As a youngster, I brought my lunch to school everyday, rather than buying whatever the lunch lady was slopping on trays.
Call me a rebel, I won’t object.
And what was a key component of my lunch back then, as it has been for virtually all kids then and now? Yes, the sacred juice box.
Sugary-yet-sorta-healthy, easy to manage, and just the right serving size, it’s no wonder kids go bananas for juice boxes.
Unless, I should note, it’s a juice box with a straight straw. Then and now, that’s just wrong.
It was so wrong, in fact, that when I found a juice box with a straight straw packed in my lunch bag one day, I stirred up a rebellion. (See, I told you I was a rebel.)
This occurred in about third or fourth grade. I was sitting with my buddies and, when I went to open my juice box straw from the wrapper and found it was a straight straw, not a bendy straw, I stood on the table and declared, “This is tyranny!”
Well, that may be a slight exaggeration. Some 30 years later I don’t recall the exact specifics of how I started the uprising, but I do distinctly remember four or five of us ultimately pounding our fists (lightly) on the table and (modestly) chanting “BEN-DY STRAWS! BEN-DY STRAWS!”
Did bendy straws magically start falling from the ceiling to save my dining experience? No. But we had a good laugh, so that was cool too.
Ah, memories.
Epilogue
Now I think back at how all of those little straws are still sitting in a landfill somewhere, taking up space and resisting decay, or floating in microscopic pieces in the ocean.
Friends, while my above childhood anecdote depicted a lighthearted memory of mine, I hope you’ll agree with me that it’s time for us to do better and move away from the plastic straws that are clogging up our environment.
Let’s be rebels and ditch the plastic straws once and for all.
Yes, even the bendy ones.
Thank you.
Dangling Twine 