Every other time I go out to eat with a group, be it family, friends, or acquaintances of whatever age, conversation routinely plunges into a discussion of when it is appropriate to pull out a phone. People boast about their self-control over not checking their device, and the table usually reaches a self-congratulatory consensus that we should all just keep it in our pants. The pinnacle of such abstinence-only smartphone education is a game that is popular to talk about (though I’ve never actually seen it played) wherein the first person at the dinner table to pull out their device has to pay the tab. Everyone usually agrees this is awesome.

What a ridiculous state of affairs this is.

Working? What you want on the desk or tabletop isn’t an attempt to reproduce the perfect macchiato or ristretto. That stuff in the huge mug? It’s a great warm bath of instant coffee. Perfect.

A dessert-spoonful of the granules. A slosh of milk and boiling water, and the black scum rises to the surface and slowly dissolves. Writers like their rituals, and almost always, as I carry the mug from the kitchen to the dining table I write on, the first sentence of the morning takes its form. Is it delicious? I really don’t know – you might as well ask the same thing about toothpaste. It’s just a daily presence, and if you ever laid off it, you’d certainly miss it and look forward to its return.