In  my funk, I have resorted to candy coffee.  "Candy coffee," as a  now-notorious ex termed it, is coffee with a large swaggle of cream and a  coma-inducing measure of sugar.  Even when funky I cannot put cream and  sugar in my coffee so I'm having faux candy coffee, the caffeinated equivalent  of the sorbitol-carob version of your favorite chocolate truffle: whole  milk and splenda.  I realize dozens, maybe even hundreds (dare I write  "millions"?) of people drink it this way every day, but here in my usual place  (Peets WG) I should be wearing dark glasses and a wig.  No doubt I will  lose my membership in the Real Coffee Drinkers Club (membership by addiction  only), and have to start frequenting poseur palaces where, after a short descent  into Pike's Place purgatory, you will find me in line, muttering 8-word  descriptions of a flaccid fluid poison masquerading as  coffee. 
 Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps one can tart up the respectable without  stooping to being a disrespectable tart. And if you say I wasn't  respectable to begin with, that only means the long tumble downward is picking  up speed.
