Straws Suck: Just say no straw please

It’s going to be hard to break the news to my little monkey but it’s time to just say no to plastic straws because Plastic Straws are For Suckers!

My friend Marialyce Pedersen invited me to join a facebook group which asks:

What would happen if everyone who ordered a drink politely added “And no plastic straw, please!” ?
What would happen is this…
That straw, that was unwrapped from a paper wrapper and unboxed from a box, unloaded from a truck that drove from the docks where a ship had carried it from faraway lands or a railcar had chugged through the once pristine sands of the Gulf Coast-Home of the US Petrochemical Industry and the petrochemical-contaminated fisheries and the cancers that carry misery on the waters of the once great Gulf Coast-
That straw, that was made from gas (that treasured substance from our ancient past) and through clever methods developed by clever men, strung together in molecules, becoming a resin that’s plasticized, colorized, fillerized and stabilized-off-gassing and weeping wastewater throughout-
That straw, that was going to end up in your drink for just a moment-so that you could grab it, give your drink a swirl, then pull it out and toss it aside where it would lay until the waitstaff came to clear it away and dump it in the trash -to go where? buried in the ground for millions of years or burned for energy a pointless, poisonous career -

That straw would no longer be needed.
And with millions of people demanding ” No Plastic Straws, Please!” the factories would stop making them and the fisheries would recover. Slowly perhaps, but with your help they will and the rails will carry merrymakers seeking a day’s thrill down on the Gulf Coast.
And those ships from faraway lands that brought us plastic poisons in brightly colored bands? Well, let’s just ask them to stay away, please, and not to return until they have something truly special like some nice oolong teas.
And the trucks that rumbled from the  docks at the port? Well, we’ll change over to wagons and make it a sport! (ox-racing!)
And the forests will return, soon you shall see, when we stop wrapping straws in all of our trees.
And the air will blow cleaner, and the waters will run pure and all this will happen from this one simple cure.
And is that not reason to celebrate? Let’s drink to that and No Plastic Straw, Please!

Yes, my little monkey will be disappointed–until I tell him we can get some of the edible ones he’s been begging for at Big Lots and that we have plenty of reusable ones at our house that we’ll just bring with us from now on just like we’ve learned to bring our own cups and our own shopping bags!
(By the way, poetically I take absolutely no credit or blame for the rap above. It came to me in an odd collection of stanzas, paragraphs, end rhymes and more. I turned it into this format but it’s still crazy making for me.)