a gift idea.

Apparently this is A Thing now. Remember the über-expensive pre-dirtied jeans, so you can look like a landscaper even if you're really the kind of person who talks really loud to landscapers because, you know, people who look like they might be from another country will understand English if you TALK REALLY LOUD AND SLOW TO THEM?

Well, Tiffany's has them beat. I remember when I was a Girl Scout, and we saved old cans, washed them well, and decoupaged them with fabric scraps to use as a pencil holder. Tiffany's doesn't even go that far: Plated Tiffany's Tin Can.

Yes, I guess it is silver-plated and vermeil (That's a mixture with gold in it, isn't it?) on the inside. And a little robin's-egg-blue stripe so your friends in-the-know will know it's from Tiffany's without you having to tell them.

(Pity they don't sell a replica of the Crackerjack prize that Paul Varjac got engraved for Holly Golightly....)

I dunno. I can only laugh about this. It's dumb and it's silly and I can't tell if Tiffany's is actually trolling us, or if they really expect someone will buy these as gifts. I suppose someone WILL, because it's almost an Emperor's New Clothes sort of thing - people will talk about how "smart" (in the old, 1950s sense) it is to have something that looks like an old Folger's can, but isn't, on your desk. And the people who think that's "smart" will not be the sort of people who ever DID use old Folger's (or other) cans to store office supplies. So the people who think this is clever and the people who think this is either silly or kind of useless are disjoint sets, so it's all good.

Though I confess: If I knew FOR A FACT that my family and friends saw this story, I'd be reeeeeeaaaaaaallllly tempted to save the cans the beans I eat come in, and wash them *very* well (and strip off the labels), and then carefully paint a line of nail polish up one side, and maybe even, if I'm very ambitious, go get a can of clear spray lacquer and spray them out on my drive so that the nail polish doesn't wear off so easily.....and bingo! you have your own Stylish Can for Storing Pencils Or Other Tall Skinny Things. And I could even use a different shade of polish on each one, so they'd be Unique!

But like I said: I doubt many people on my gift list will have seen this, so they'd just be puzzled by my apparent regression to third grade.

But I might make one for my office over at work, I don't know.

(They also have a $9000 "ball of yarn," except it's faux yarn, you can't even knit with it. Forget that. Anyway, $9000 would buy enough Lion Brand for me to make a blanket to cover my entire house, if I only had time to make it....)