Suck It

Is having a gap between your two front teeth like having a built in straw?

What is the point of the straw? Is it to not get a liquid moustache when you drink? Why is it with some drinks we don’t use one but with others we do? I don’t use a straw when I drink water, yet I use one when I drink iced coffee. Why is that?

We always use one when we drink a milkshake yet it’s like trying to suck up a mattress through a pin hole. My head is ready to explode with all the attempted sucking I do to get one teensy drop into my mouth. Milkshakes are probably the one drink we should NOT use a straw for but we are never served one without. Most of the time I use the straw like a spoon; to scoop up little tastes of the shake and lick it off or suck out the bottom. If I just drink it straight from the cup, I inevitably end up with brain freeze. They may as well stick my head in a freezer with needles through my eyes and leave it there for an hour, because that's what it feels like.

I have yet to figure out how to correctly use the squirt bottle. A stream of liquid shooting into my mouth does not appeal to me. It never fails to go directly to the back of my throat and choke me. And if that doesn't happen, I always squirt way too much in so that my cheeks are puffed out like a chipmunk and half of it ends up coming out my nose. Very attractive.

I know that squirt bottles are probably the most sanitary way to drink because if used correctly, you shouldn't be touching any part with your lips; except in my case, where I cover the entire squirt part with my mouth and suck, since I can't figure out any other way. And when I push down the top to close it, I invariably end up pinching my finger or the fatty part of my palm. I actually don't like drinking out of bottles at all. I obviously have no clue how.

We drink soda with a straw. Is it so the bubbles burn the back of our throat instead of tickling our lips? I find carbonated drinks to be more painful then pleasurable, so I rarely drink them. I feel like a fire is ignited in my throat and I have swallowed a gallon of air tainted with acid; not to mention the variety of sounds and gurgles they stir up in our stomachs and the gasses that inevitably discharge through our asses. The negatives of carbonation so outweigh the positives that I don’t understand why they are so popular. [A little too much info?]

When I do drink soda out of a can, I rarely fail to cut my lip on the aluminum. Just a little slit, but enough to tell me that a straw would have been the better alternative. And try getting that tab off the can...seriously? If your nail isn't in the shape of a paint scraper, expect to take a good hour trying to lift the tab away from the top of the can. Can they make it any harder to lift it up? I make sure I haven't had a manicure close to the time of trying to open a can of soda because half my nail breaks off with the attempt. They may as well put a combination lock on it and have us guess the code. I think I would have better luck. A stick of dynamite, maybe?

My daughter drinks coffee out of a straw. She does that so as to not stain her perfectly straight, white, glistening teeth. I thought it was a great idea so I tried it. I couldn't talk for three days waiting for the blisters on my tongue to go away and the hanging skin from the burnt roof of my mouth to fall off. I thpoke with a lithp and it wathn't very pleathant, ethpethially thinth I thpeak on the phone all day for work.

I guess there’s an art to drinking. My daughter always tells me I don’t know how to drink out of a regular water bottle. I didn’t realize there could be a wrong way unless, of course, you are slurping so loudly that others can’t hear anything else but the slurp. I put my entire mouth over the opening (like I do with the squirt bottle), but she tells me I should cover only half; that way there is no backwash and therefore she will then drink out of my bottle. Maybe subconsciously I do it just so she won’t drink mine because, more often than not, she finishes it and I have to get another. [Notice I said I have to get another? God forbid she would replace it for me.] I’m not really sure I understand how no matter how you drink out of a bottle, there’s no residual little particles of food mixed in the water anyway, IF you are eating and drinking simultaneously. If you aren’t eating at the same time, and there ARE particles of something in the water…you may want to check your mouth for…God only knows what. But I know I wouldn’t want to share a drink with you.

And speaking of my daughter telling me I don't know how to drink...if I didn't know myself better, according to my kids, it would appear that I am about 5 years old not knowing much of anything. I sometimes wonder how I managed without them for the first 34 years of my life. Yes, it's true I haven't mastered the art of drinking; something you learn the minute you are born. Others can pretty much guess what I've been drinking by the colors outlining my upper lip. I haven't quite perfected the lip lift and curl, so as not to leave evidence on my mouth. Next to my bed, or on my desk, or anywhere around the house, sits my 26 year old plastic Dairy Queen Blizzard water cup. Most of the logo is faded away, it's aged a bit, but it gives me great comfort. I drink it without caring if I get a water moustache or if I dribble it down my shirt. I don't need a straw. I don't have to squirt. I don't ever cut my lip. I never choke. Maybe I am like a 5 year old, in dire need of drinking lessons...but all I have to say to that is "Suck it."