This morning, I awoke, showered, dressed myself, took milk out of the fridge, and opened my kitchen cupboard, expecting to find a box of cereal with which I could prepare my breakfast. Unfortunately, my cupboard was devoid of suitable breakfast material, because I have failed to stop in at the grocery store on the way home from work over the past few days.

At this point, I had two options. I could skip breakfast entirely (and deal with the consequences of an unkickstarted metabolism), or I could stop in somewhere on the way into work and buy myself some greasy food.

I chose the latter option and opted for a McDonald’s drive-thru. I ordered an iced tea (no ice) with my meal, because while apple juice and orange juice are generally better early morning choices, the juice varieties McDonald’s carries are subpar representatives of the category.

I paid, drove up to the second window, and received my purchase. As the girl handed me my drink, I heard a disturbing rattle from within the cup: ICE! Not wanting to make waves, I feigned gratitude, put the drink in my cup holder, and sped off to work.

Now why did I present this four-paragraph anecdote to you? I tell you this because I want you to see how easy it is for even the most careful of us to be led astray. Despite the fact that I, like all rational people, ordered my drink with no ice, an error—whether wilful or ignorant—caught me by surprise. I had no prepared response; I hadn’t rehearsed what I would do if I ordered my drink with no ice but was, regardless, given a drink with ice.

Preparedness is the key. Next time, I’ll be ready!

I understand that there may be some readers who question the practice of ordering a drink with no ice. For these people, I would like to present a few of the fundamental tenets of the “No-Ice Beverage” philosophy.

Reasons Why You Should Order Your Drinks Without Ice
Ice Melts
When you order a soft drink at a restaurant, you are not receiving some mystical, pure, elemental substance—Coke, root beer, and iced tea cannot be found on the Periodic Table. Instead, these beverages are well-balanced mixtures of various ingredients, with the most significant ingredient (by volume) typically being water. When you allow ice to be placed into your cup, it may keep your drink cold for a longer period of time. (I say longer because soft drinks are generally acceptably cool for the first five or ten minutes after purchase, even without ice.) However, it doesn’t take long for ice in a cup to begin to melt, releasing more flavourless liquid into your beverage and throwing off the stable, measured ratio of solvents to water. This is unacceptable, though if you finish your drink quickly enough you can often avoid the most significant of the dilution.

Reduced Value
There are no two ways about it: ice takes up space in your cup. When you order a 20-ounce drink and receive a cup with five ounces of ice in it, then you are really only receiving a 15-ounce drink. This is foolishness! When you order your drink without ice, you maximize the volume of your beverage. There are some places where the employees will simply press the auto-fill button, which will only fill your cup 80% full, but most of the time the employee will manually top off your cup to the proper 95% to 98% mark.

Occasions on Which Ordering Ice in Your Drink is Acceptable
Delay Between Purchase and Consumption
If you are the kind of person who takes a long time to finish your drink, or if there is going to be a delay of ten minutes or more between the time you receive the beverage and the time you are able to consume it, then allowing the restaurant to put ice in your drink is acceptable for the sake of maintaining its temperature.

Sit-Down Restaurants
It is also acceptable to allow a sit-down restaurant to place ice in your glass if they offer free refills. In this scenario, the reduced volume of beverage in your glass is a non-issue, since you can simply have the glass refilled at no extra charge.

Moderation in Everything
People who order their drinks with no ice are part of a global brotherhood, a worldwide family of rational thinkers. There are some people, though—if, indeed, you would call them “people” at all—who order their drinks without ice and intentionally allow their drink to cool. They enjoy and even prefer lukewarm drinks. These individuals are criminally insane. If you find yourself in a situation where someone around you expresses a preference for room-temperature beverages, be sure to calmly take the following steps:

• Make eye-contact with any others who have heard the lunatic’s confession, to determine whether anyone else sympathizes with what was said;
• Slowly back away from the crazed individual and any sympathizers;
• Remove your cell phone from your pocket, if you have one, pretending that you are receiving a call;
• Surreptitiously dial the number for your local emergency services (in most of North America this number is 9-1-1); and
• Speak the following words to the operator: “Oh, hi, Grandma! Yes, the weather is unusually tepid here at!”

When the operator hears you complete this code-phrase, they will immediately dispatch a SWAT team to the address you’ve specified. Until help arrives, you should be careful not to make any sudden moves or do anything that might be perceived by the crazy nutjob as a threat. If attacked, curl into a ball and protect your head. Above all, do not try to run!

If you have any questions that were not answered in this document, please feel free to ask! Not everyone has been gifted with a clear and reasoning mind in this area; there are many false doctrines vying for control of our beverage-purchasing allegiances. Do not be embarrassed! We all have our failings.

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