This morning I am working from home. Home, notably, does not have a Starbucks on the way to it (since the way to it is merely the walk from my bedroom to my “home office,” as I like to call my overstuffed armchair). So i thought perhaps I could get away with skipping a day of the PSL challenge.

Of course, approximately the second thing my partner said to me this morning was “Don’t forget to have your PSL.” So I fired up google maps, and, after checking in on work for a bit, I got up and walked the 4 blocks to my nearest Starbucks.

This Starbucks, it turns out, is very popular! There was a line in the neighborhood of 20 people even at 9:15 (by which time I assume the majority of people have already had, or, at least, obtained their coffee). So after waiting my turn dutifully, ordering in what I imagine was a pained whisper my Pumpkin Spice Latte (and, incidentally, a cup of cream cheese – you should order cream cheese by itself at a Starbucks some time, your cashier will be very amused), and waiting for my cup to appear, voicelessly, on the serving counter, it was time.

This PSL was, I admit, easier to stomach that the first. My first sip set in, dousing the back of my throat and my hard palette in what I, to my chagrin, can muster no words better than “chemical burn” to describe the taste of. After that initial shudder of revulsion, though – and, writing about it now, some half hour later, the taste still lingers – the drink more or less vanished down my throat with little conscious resistance. Perhaps I was thirsty; perhaps I was tired; perhaps I am merely already becoming accustomed to these horrors.

How will tomorrow go? Will I be — more accustomed? — finally revulsed by the overload? — too terrified to go on with the experiment? Only time will tell.