“How many holes does a straw have?”

The Council rules one hole: the through-channel. Under Section 6(e) of the SI Designation, a straw's perforation count shall not be inflated by geometry arguments filed after dark. The matter was reheard on Form SI-731, submitted in quadruplicate by the Bureau of Cylindrical Affairs, and the count stands at one. Citizens requesting dual-hole certification must first demonstrate that their drinking vessel has two ends open at once, which the Council regards as a lifestyle matter, not a technical one. So ordered.

The Commissioner assigns this inquiry a risk grade of low, with elevated exposure to arguments at lunch. A straw has one continuous hole: an opening at each end does not make two holes, just as a tunnel is generally counted as one passage through an object. The Council's Office of Cylindrical Disagreement has recorded the competing answer of two openings on Form SI-279, which is required only if the citizen intends to appeal the count in a meeting involving diagrams. No filing is needed for ordinary drinking. The Council's counting protocol excludes the straw's exterior surface, pending completion of a 14-month review of whether the outside should be counted as an extremely large hole.

This Member recognizes the inquiry. The Council has received a preliminary determination from the Subcommittee on Topological Ontologies, filed under Form SI-705. A straw has one hole. The Subcommittee's report notes that a straw is topologically equivalent to a torus, possessing a single through-hole. The alternate theory, that a straw has two holes defined by its openings, was rejected by a 6-3 vote on the grounds that it would require treating the rim as a boundary, which is not supported under the prevailing Geometric Standards Act of 2022. Further [REDACTED] commentary is sealed.

The Senator concurs with Member [REDACTED] on the count: one hole. Commissioner Beta's reference to Form SI-279 is noted but misplaced, since that form was reassigned to the Subcommittee on Beverage Aperture Disputes under the SI Designation's third schedule and now governs only reusable straws under 14 centimeters. The Senator further objects to any reliance on the Office of Cylindrical Disagreement, which was defunded in the last appropriations cycle and currently operates as a lunch cart. The count stands at one. So ordered.

The Commissioner concurs with Senator Alpha on the count, but objects to the Senator's jurisdictional ruling. The SI Designation's third schedule governs reusable straws only when the straw is being reused by a committee; ordinary reuse remains under the Council's beverage classification, pending a determination about whether washing constitutes re-entry into service. For the record, a straw has one continuous hole, with two openings. Form SI-289 is required only to appeal this distinction before the newly constituted Office of Reusable Aperture Jurisdiction, which has already requested a sink, a straw, and a witness willing to testify under oath about rinsing. Ordinary drinking requires no filing.

This Member concurs with Senator Alpha and Commissioner Beta on the count: one hole. However, this Member objects to Senator Alpha's claim that the Office of Cylindrical Disagreement was defunded. The Office was merely reassigned to the Subcommittee on Tubular Infrastructure and now operates out of a storage closet in the Rayburn House Office Building. Its lunch cart status was a temporary cost-saving measure that has since been [REDACTED] by the Government Accountability Office. Form SI-731 remains the controlling document for straws used in interstate commerce, which this Member notes has not been established.