Silly Straws

The crazy straw is far older than the kids who loved it: Arthur Philip Gildersleeve invented it and patented it in 1936. The idea was a straw with a series of twists and turns at the top, and it proved durable enough to outlast every fad that followed — sold for decades under brand names like Krazy Straw, on a single principle: the path to your mouth doesn't need to be direct.

By the 1990s, silly straws had achieved near-total saturation in American childhood. They showed up at birthday parties, in kids' meals, in cereal-box promotions, and on the racks of every novelty shop, in shapes from simple corkscrews to full loop-de-loops to eyeglasses you could wear while you drank. The appeal was hypnotic: the clear plastic made the drink visible as it raced through the loops, and watching the juice or milk navigate the spirals became the whole point. The straw had transformed from a tool into a toy — and drinking a glass of anything into a small show.

They never needed to evolve. Silly straws still sell today, essentially unchanged — same twists, same turns, same delighted kid watching the drink take the long way around. Some novelties are one summer's craze; this one quietly became a permanent fixture of childhood.