Your Fave Is Problematic: Ice

It’s a common complaint in this boba-filled, soda-rampant world. Food places give us too much ice, taking up valuable cup space, and effectively halving the amount of drink you get. It’s simply deceptive. Though not as memetic as the amount of air in bags of crisps (which, by the way, keeps your precious potato slices from going stale), many are familiar with this annoyance.

It’s uttered by teenagers who spend too much time loitering in malls, and by people who make lossy memes on the internet. And it’s true. Much like prices that end in .99, we are fooled by this simple trick. We think we are receiving much more drink than the reality.

But that isn’t the whole problem. Having too much air in your chips or having that gap at the bottom of cup noodles only reduces the amount of product that you get. It doesn’t change the quality of the product. Ice melts, though.

It melts into your drink, watering it down. Unlike how fruits and other foods will rot and go moldy after a few days, your drink becomes bland in less than an hour! Now you have to use it all up before the ice melts, or else your experience slowly degrades; you start with a yummy drink and end with a thin, disgusting liquid that nobody wants. And if that happens, then coupled with the above problem that you’re getting less than what is promised, you’ve really gotten far less than your money’s worth.

But wait, you say. Isn’t that the sunk cost fallacy? I mean, you don’t have to drink it all.

It is. Having already paid for it, there is no difference whether you drink it all or not. But let’s say you want to maximize the enjoyment you can get from this drink. Not because you want to get your money’s worth, but because you want to be happy.

You have three options. You can drink it all before the ice melts, but then you will feel all bloated, too full to eat other things. You can drink at your own pace until it becomes gross, then throw it away, not caring about waste. Or, realizing that the more you drink, the higher the ratio of water-to-drink, and thus the more bland it will become, wait for the ice to fully melt and then begin drinking. This reduces the disgusting taste to a minimum.

Assuming you’re not bounded by portability, you can even take the ice out of your drink. This is probably the best option, but it can be annoying or rude.

All the options that you have are compromises in the quality of your experience. The whole situation can be avoided if people just stopped serving ice with drinks as the default. Then we could have nice, evenly-flavoured drinks without hassle. Or I guess you could just quit balancing your life’s happiness on how much you enjoy the sugary liquids bought on your latest social center expedition. But where’s the fun in that?