Salt and Pepper Shakers, $1

The great allure of shopping is the idea that an object can change your life. A new dress just might transform you for the evening. A new set of folders just might turn you into the inspired worker you always knew you could be. A new buffet with deep drawers just might be the ticket out of the cluttered mess your house is always in. I do not doubt that an object can change your life, though perhaps not usually in such grand ways. I recently bought a second cruet set. I’d always made do with one, but was forever having to get up in the middle of dinner to fetch the salt from beside the stove, or leave the stove at a crucial moment to fetch the pepper from the table. But is my life changed? Well, yes. Once or twice a day, four or five times a week, it is.