Rarely do cliches encapsulate stories well, but, in this case at least, it was the last straw.
The back of this man’s metaphorical camel was well and truly broken recently, when staff at a Hong Kong McDonald’s informed him that they did not have the plastic tubes designed to facilitate drinking with a burger in your hand.
It was, you see, Monday, which the fast food giant has designated as straw-free in their most recent bid to look like good corporate citizens.
Straw-less, the customer lost it.
Video of the showdown was posted onto a Facebook group for funny videos by user Darron Lam this afternoon. It’s not clear where exactly it was filmed, but some commenters have suggested that the fast food outlet in the video is located in Mong Kok.
In the short video, the white-shirted man — standing at the counter behind a grey-haired man who is just trying to enjoy his burger — can be seen yelling at a member of staff over the straw shortage.
The staff member responds by shouting back “what do you want then?”
There is a brief pause and awkward silence until the customer, his outbursts largely unintelligible, erupts again, to which the staff member responds: “Are you done yet?”
He asks the customer to leave, and when he refuses, the staff member replies “alright, stand there then, take your time.”
It was at this point the customer storms out, straw-less and clutching his paper McDonald’s bag.
If only the angry white-shirted man knew that the American fast food chain announced at the beginning of this month that it had launched a “no straw Monday” campaign, then he could have saved the energy spent yelling.
The campaign was launched off the back of many big chain restaurants like KFC, Tai Hing and Cafe de Coral pledging they will reduce plastic.
Although The Standard reported that McDonald’s will offer plastic straws to anyone who asks for them, it’s not clear why the customer in the video didn’t get one.
The outburst prompted many netizens to wonder why he needed to make a fuss over straws anyway when, as one netizen remarked, “he could have just gone to Circle K and got a straw there.”
“He threatened to stand and not move and he couldn’t even do that!” said another netizen.
Other commenters however thought the real star of the show was the grey-haired man in the center of the frame with his back to the action.
“Uncle is so calm,” said one netizen, while others complimented on what appeared to be his choice of lunch: a sausage McMuffin with some ketchup squeezed on top.
The straw man is certainly not the first guy in the city to have a meltdown in a McDonald’s.
Just month, a dad unleashed a verbal tirade on a staff member in front of his daughter after being told that he missed out on a two burgers for HK$10 promotional offer.
