It’s time for a lighter debate than one about creepy anonymous websites and election day: ice cream cones. The question of cone superiority is one that comes up during dinner almost every night with my friends: are sugar cones or cake cones better? I think there is a clearly obvious answer to this question. Sugar cones taste better than cake cones and are more aesthetically pleasing, so therefore they are always the better choice.

Cake cones have flat bottoms (so they can stand up on their own) and smooth surfaces, with paper wrappers around the base. Sugar cones are triangle-shaped with a waffled pattern and no paper wrapper (at least, not the ones in Café Mac). Both of these cone varieties are usually available during meals at Café Mac.

Let’s start with the pitfalls of the cake cone. First of all, cake cones have the texture and taste of cardboard, which is not even vaguely resemblant of a dessert. Biting into a cake cone is essentially equivalent to consuming a shoebox. There is nothing pleasant or flavorful about a cake cone. A cake cone does not crunch, but instead feebly breaks under pressure, and almost seems chewier than it is crunchy. Also, a cylindrical cone makes holding my ice cream more difficult; it doesn’t fit into the contour of my hand like a sugar cone. (Further, a cake cone isn’t even cone-shaped at all. Should it be called a cake cylinder? A cake circular prism? And having the word ‘cake’ in its name is an insult to the wonderful dessert that is cake itself.) Thirdly, the paper wrapper on the cake cones in Café Mac adds an additional burden to a cake cone experience. What if I accidentally eat a piece of paper, which arguably tastes even worse than the cake cone itself? Or what if I get a paper cut and slowly bleed to death as a result of this treacherous dessert item? These possible dangers are simply not worth choosing a cake cone.

A sugar cone resolves all the problems brought up by a cake cone. Sugar cones have a sweet flavor and a satisfying crunch. A sugar cone fits into my hand very nicely. A sugar cone also contains sugar and is cone-shaped, so its name very accurately describes what it is. Finally, there is no paper add-on to a sugar cone, so I can eat my ice cream without any non-edible materials coming into play. Overall, eating a sugar cone is a very pleasant experience and enhances the ice cream that it contains.

I have several friends who vehemently disagree with me. To them I respond: Do you have taste buds at all? What traumatic experience did you have with cone-shaped items to give you such a skewed opinion? Or do you have a weird fetish for cardboard?

Every once in a while, there is a sad meal when Café Mac only gives us cake cones. After my tears dry, I decide that instead of a cake cone, I might as well just get a bowl for my ice cream—it would probably taste better than the cake cone, anyway.