Work in Progress (or Less Serious Conversations on Straws)

My fingers sorted through the small bag of birdseed, carefully trying to gather equal amounts of each particular kind of seed before tossing it to the birds. The seed produced quite an audience some of which simply gazed over the generous feast before them only to leave, followed only by my quiet curses condemning them for their imprudent ingratitude. My grumblings to the reprobate birds generally took its toll on my demeanor often leading people to believe that I desired to be left alone. Of course, I cannot blame it solely on the birds, because it was I talking to them and not the other way around. Not to mention the fact that when talking to birds, a man is usually found in his most foolish state.
Adults are not much more different than children. We never left the playground. When we’re at the office we play tag. Hoping that we won’t be “it,” we pass the work that should have been last week on to the poor new guy hiding in cubicle four. When we’re alone, we still pretend to build impenetrable forts with moats and towers. We claim space that’s not ours to really claim, stake it as own, and start building boundaries and walls around ourselves, but we forget to build windows or doors. However, children are immune to the fortresses of adults, or rather, they are Trojan Horses. We think them innocent enough to let them within our bounds only to realize, all too late, that they’ve conquered our hearts.
When the seed was gone and my flighty, feathered audience had left, a little girl shuffled over to the opposite end of the bench, which I was, up until recently, surrounding with castle walls. Not seeing any imminent threat from her, I simply worked on putting the finishing touches on the moat and towers. With grace that can only be understood as childlike, she propped herself up on the bench. She had carried with her a glass bottle of pop that she could barely fit both her hands around. She took a sip from the straw that was inserted into the bottle, and her legs began to swing back and forth like she was on a swing-set. After a while, she looked my direction and asked, “Hey Mister, what’s a straw?”
Quite comically baffled, I half-heartedly asked, “What do you mean? Do you mean, what’s it made of?” “No, I don’t mean that,” she said, “I mean—um—I mean, what makes a straw a straw?” Still somewhat taken back, I tried to answer her question, “Well, straws are hollow tubes that are usually made out of plastic that we use to drink liquid out of glasses and bottles, like the one you’ve got there.” With a look of total dissatisfaction, she asked, “Why don’t we call them tubes then?” “Because not all tubes are used for drinking,” I replied. Her brow furrowed a bit more and she said, “But not all straws are used for drinking. Some boys in my class use straws to shoot spit-wads at the teacher. Does that mean those aren’t straws anymore?” I smiled and said, “No, those are still straws (I guess). They’re just not being used in the right way.” I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth before she asked, “How do you know if they’re being used in the right way or not?” I paused for a bit and began to say, “Well the way the boys in your class use straws is bad, and the way that you’re using your straw is good, because you’re using it to drink.” She then asked, “But what about when I’m not using it for anything bad but just for something fun like blowing bubbles in my soda or making gurgling sounds when there’s only ice left in my cup? Is that bad?” “No, it’s not bad. It’s just not the right way,” I replied. “But I thought that the wrong way was bad and the right way was good,” the girl said rather inquisitively. “Yes, that does seem a bit off,” I said, “Why isn’t it that way?” We sat for while, silent, watching a man play fetch with his dog. Finally breaking the silence, the girl asked me, “So have you figured out what a straw is yet?” I laughed and told her I was working on it. Then I asked her, “Have you?” She replied with a rather optimistic “Nope!” “What makes a straw a straw? It’s not just its shape or make nor is it just its function or how it’s used. But we can agree that straws can be used for good or bad purposes, so we’d have to say that straws are inherently good to begin with. Although, that doesn’t really answer the question, does it? So, let’s see. What’s so neat about straws? Well, like you said before, without straws we couldn’t make gurgling sounds or blow bubbles in our drinks. Straws also save us from embarrassing encounters with the ice and that little bit of liquid that always gets stuck at the bottom of our cups or glasses and waits to fall on us once we’ve tilted our heads too far back—the thing about straws is this: they have a given design and a determined function but it doesn’t define or limit them in what they can be used for. Straws share the likeness and similarity to tubes, but we don’t call straws tubes because calling a straw a tube would be like calling a dog a wolf. Straws have inherited a relationship with us that now separates them from other objects that may feign at being straws, like tubes or hoses.” I paused to look over at the little girl who had now finished off the bottle of pop, and I asked her, “Does that make sense?” She looked over at me and said, “Sort of, but I’m still kind of wondering what a straw is.” The little girl then slid off the bench and started walking over to the playground.