The last straw

December 15th, 2004 / #advice, #random

What classifies being a man? Is it chopping down trees with one swift swing of an axe? Or could it have something to do with killing a man with your bare hands? Or should it be mandated that in order for you to be considered a real man, you slap one of those bumper stickers on the back of your pickup telling the whole world of your prayer habits?

While all of these qualities are indeed conducive to existing as a man, the evolution into that state of being is wholly different.

Here’s a tip from the manliest of them all: Don’t use straws.

Yeah, I said it. Radical, is it not? Picture this: You sit down at a table, order your drink (which, at this point in my life cannot be legally alcoholic), and in a few minutes the servestress (or whomever) returns with a mug of frosty Coca Cola and a little plastic tube wrapped oh-so-sanitarily in paper. By tossing the straw to the side and swigging from the glass with your bare lips, you are exposing yourself to a world of potential infection from prior uses. But in essence by merely chugging from that glass you’ve said to that viral disease, “I’m not afraid of you, because a real man shouldn’t be.”

Because exams are over, this is all I have to think of.