Yes, I use paper straws. Yes, I am helping.

Making my coffee taste like toilet paper tubes is for the cause.

Artwork by Dave Danzara

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I have spent an innumerable amount of morning commutes passing through local coffee shops, muttering or hooting into my Airpods, and I have done this for long enough that there is an agglomeration of routine and comfort attached to it. In the sunny and ambient insignificance of May, it is confounding to finally shake off the winter dungeon and dread and then find yourself drifting back to work—or caring about anything that doesn’t involve day drinking on a patio, really. There is a jarring and inexplicable amount of people taking utterly inconsequential selfies in front of cherry blossoms, but instead, I am buzzing at a high altitude, circling the contrast between a paper straw jammed into a plastic lid concealing a plastic coffee cup. I glance toward the burbling espresso machines and then notice a thuddingly bizarre framed display that alleges: These straws are made of 100% recycled material.

Picturing this paper straw as a manilla folder in a previous life may require some higher-order deception, but my lips are puckered around the more benignly grim prospect of sucking on what feels like a FedEx package.

The remaining venture between the coffee shop and my desk is best characterized by a constant weaving through fraught and absent-minded gremlins all whirring or plodding their way to their offices. Drinking a cold brew in these conditions is an act of delicate sipping at periodic intervals. It demands both forethought and intent. Heaven forbid, if you don’t finish your drink within 30 minutes of ordering it, these paper straws will steadily disintegrate into a soggy FedEx package someone left on the porch overnight.

In a simple flash of want, soiling an $8 coffee would spiral me into an internal fuming burst of misanthropy and derangement, especially within a broader culture that venerates relentless self-centered entitlement. But I remember that this is a minor inconvenience and a small sacrifice for the greater good.

For every billion paper straws we use, Kylie Jenner gets to fly her private jet to a Starbucks.

We are all just keeping up with the Kardashians.

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