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.