While ancient Sumerians used gold and lapis lazuli tubes to drink beer, the modern drinking straw was patented by Marvin Stone in 1888. Before Stone's invention, people used natural rye grass straws, which were problematic because they tended to turn mushy in liquid and added an unpleasant grassy flavor to the drink. Stone, who worked in a factory that made paper cigarette holders, came up with the idea of winding paper around a pencil and gluing it. He later used paraffin-coated manila paper so the straw wouldn't get waterlogged. In the 1930s, Joseph Friedman invented the 'bendy straw' after watching his daughter struggle to drink a milkshake from a straight straw at a soda fountain. He inserted a screw into the straw and wrapped dental floss around it to create the accordion-like corrugations.