CARLTON FLETCHER: Brother, can you spare six bucks for a cup of coffee?

“My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I’m busted. Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I’m busted.”

— Ray Charles

A great many of us have heard the old saying “… that and a dime will get you a cup of coffee.”

Talk about outdated.

I found out just how outdated the old saw is recently when I went to one of the boutique coffee shops to get a quick jolt. By the time I staggered out, I’d amended the old saying: “… that and $6.11 will get you a cup of coffee.”

I guess that, in addition to showing why people are complaining so much about the economy, my little trip to the coffee shop showed how out of touch I am. It didn’t help that it came a day or so after I discovered another consumer reality that left me stunned.

Because it’s been pointed out to me that my system can do with a lot less sugar, it’s been months and months since I’ve participated in one of my other favorite culinary pursuits: Picking up a dozen hot doughnuts at one of the local doughnut establishments.

(I’ll hark back to my days as a very broke reporter for The Tifton Gazette many decades ago to provide a point of reference: When I was able to scrape together a few pennies, I would, with my colleagues at that time, walk the half-block from the Gazette to Mi-Lady Bakery to pick up morning treats (which probably is one of the primary reasons I’m not allowed to eat much sugar these days). The doughnuts at Mi-Lady were amazing: They looked like a tricycle wheel-sized circle of sweet goodness; they were so big and a perfectly glazed golden brown.)

Any time I think of doughnuts, I think of the food of the gods served up at the Tifton bakery. So now you might be able to imagine my surprise — I was honestly stunned — when, on Election Day, Tara and I decided to say to hell with good sense and picked up a couple of doughnuts while we watched the election returns. When I opened the box, I thought I was being pranked. These modern-day doughnuts looked to be about the size of a 50-cent piece.

After I got over the initial shock (and polished off two of these mini-doughnuts in a couple of bites), I found myself understanding a little better what it is people are talking about when they use terms like shrinkflation, inflation and recession. See, I hate shopping with a passion, and I have a wife who is just the opposite. She buys what needs to be bought, and I think now part of the reason is to shield me from the cost-of-living reality, my shopping experience being stuck in the ’70s and all.

After being awakened to the harsh reality of the day, I started looking around. Examples abounded. That eight-pack of peanut butter-and-cheese crackers that had sustained me when I did construction work with my dad as a teen first shrank to six crackers, and now they too are bite-sized and not enough to get me through a medium case of the munchies, much less a whole day.

Candy bars shrunk down to slightly-more-than-bite-size, but the smart confectioners came up with a solution to complaints about portion size: They increased the size to slightly bigger than before and tripled the price.

Fast-food burgers that contain the thinnest layers of beef imaginable went, seemingly overnight, from affordable fare to gourmet-level prices.

I guess it really hit home when my close friend, who works in the food service industry, showed me a bill she’d gotten recently from a restaurant. A line item on the bill read, “Temporary Inflation — 8%.” That’s what it’s come to.

Me? I just wanted a cup of coffee and a doughnut … without having to take out a loan.