Over the past several months, Starbucks Coffee has been revamping its stores and practices, and among the many changes customers have seen, one of the most peevish has to be the new plastic lids used for cold beverages. At first glance, they look like all the other standard lids, but upon further inspection, these plastic disks prove to be nothing more than stubborn coffee cock-blocks. That’s right, the plastic tops do little but impede thirsty drinkers on their quest for caffeinated goodness. They are horrendous, awful, and quite possibly forged in the depths of hell. I hate them, and I’ve decided to start a crusade to get Starbucks to shift manufacturers so that we the people can enjoy our iced lattes and frappucinos with ease once again.
A detailed, step-by-step photographic case against the lids after the jump…
Here’s the lid. Everything looks normal, but don’t let those slits in the center fool you. No straw is getting through there.
Chances are this is the first thing that’ll happen when you try to penetrate the lid. You’ll be lucky if your straw doesn’t tear.
If you’re fortunate enough to get the straw in, don’t get too excited. Those slits are tight and will crush the straw like an unrelenting vice.
Good luck getting anything through that.
In case you haven’t already thrown your tattered straw in the trash by now, you’ll have to remove it and pry open a hole. This is unpleasant because a) who wants to stick their finger into their drink? and b) between removing the straw and pokin’ around, there’s bound to be a small mess.
See?
Of course, just because you fiddled with the slits doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed success. Look at the multi-pronged way the lid simply devours the straw, even after I’d pushed the slits down.
It’s clear that pushing down won’t work. The slits need to be aggressively folded back. Not so easy though. To effectively do this, you have to actually take off the lid and work with every slit individually.
Finally, you should wind up with some ridiculous fiasco like this. I suppose the tabs could be folded down too, but either way, you still need to take off the lid.
Meanwhile, you’re already onto straw two or three, and you haven’t even taken your first sip yet.
At last, success. Three hours later.
So as you can see, the new lids are both massively inconvenient and potentially wasteful. They’re a total failure on all fronts, and it’s about time that Starbucks knew about this. With your help, we can make a difference! Forward this to your friends, Digg it, share it on StumbleUpon or Buzz or Facebook or wherever else you want (use the share button below). Let’s change these lids. Do it for yourself. Do it for the environment. DO IT FOR AMERICA!
Oh, and to pester Starbucks directly, fill out a comment form here.