The Existential Crisis of Which Way to Poke Your Boba Straw

After ordering a lightly sweetened, lightly iced oolong latte, the most grueling challenge is never whether the cashier forgot to add boba, but the gamble directly above the sealed lid. The clear or yellow plastic straw, one end flat, the other a sharp, surgical-cut slant. Should you point the tip upwards, using the slope to slide in, or should the slope face downwards, using that single sharp point to break through? I stand under the arcade, left hand gripping the sweating cup, right hand suspended in mid-air, maintaining this pose for at least ninety seconds. If the angle is off by just two degrees, the seal won't be pierced cleanly. Instead, it'll present a tragic indentation and stretch, like cling film being pulled infinitely, before a 'sploosh' sound sends milk tea spraying directly onto my freshly washed sneakers along the straw's path. To avoid such a disaster, I've even rapidly calculated the area of force, pressure formulas, and the ultimate tensile strength limit of the plastic film in my mind. A passing elderly man eyes me like I'm an alien, probably thinking I'm casting a 'stasis spell' on a cup of bubble tea. Finally, I hold my breath, slant facing down, and press down hard. Great, it pierced perfectly, even emitting a crisp 'pop'. But as I happily bite down on the straw for the first sip, I realize the tip poked too deep and is stuck fast in the plastic groove at the bottom of the cup, preventing me from sucking up a single drop.