I tend to prefer to let my youngest use a straw - she is only 4 and it saves a little mess. My elder two have grown out of straws, so probably won't use them until 17 or 18 years old to speed drink alcopops, or whatever the teenager tipple of choice is then

Straws for adults - a nonsense :-)

Exception. Milkshakes.

If a milkshake is runny enough to be sucked through a straw, it's not a good milkshake.

Tony, you're not using the right straw.

So I shouldn't be using those tiny little cocktail straws to drink my milkshakes with?

If a milkshake can't be consumed through a McDonald's-size straw, then I say it's not a milkshake but just soft-serve icecream/icemilk in a cup. But if that's the way you like them, up here you can get straws large enough to easily suck a marble through - very common for bubble tea, to pass the tapioca.

Have you ever seen a Mickey-D shake after it was left out in the sun. Even after reaching ambiant temp, they are still just as thick.

So we went to P F Chang's today and they asked us if we wanted straws. I don't know if that's standard, though, because I don't ever remember being asked this question at a restaurant ever, and I've certainly been to P F Chang's before. Gotta love coincidence.

Bitt, I was just at a local Japanese restaurant and they didn't bring us straws or silverware, just chopsticks. This is probably just because it's a Japanese restaurant, but I only noticed it because of this thread, otherwise I wouldn't have thought twice

Here in Belize, they offer straws universally with glass bottles. Now I'm not an anti-straw guy, but with a glass bottle of Coke? weird.

In the bottle situation, the straw is to protect you from the bacteria left on the bottle stem by the previous handlers..

Oh well. Evidently I've assimilated those bacteria by now.