Why didn't I think of that?

• Position: What's New? - Consumer products - Product/Service Evaluation

* Many people--especially, we're sure, postal workers--regard the morass of catalogues filling America's mailboxes as an annoyance. Others welcome them into their homes with eager anticipation. We admit to falling somewhere in between, often bemoaning the trees that have been felled to supply the tons of paper necessary to churn out this material, but occasionally finding items that, while we'd never really thought about them, suddenly become irresistible. Even better than that, some turn out to make life easier and/or more pleasant.

Take, for instance, the Improvements catalogue. While browsing through a recent issue, we encountered a wooden organizer ($34.97) with vertical compartmentalized slots, one for each day of the month, that has proved ideal for filing bills by due date, birthday and anniversary cards, notes about appointments, and anything else we need reminding about (thus eliminating Post-ems and scribbled memos stuck to the front of our refrigerator). Moreover, a pair of drawers at the base are perfect for pens and pencils, pads, grocery coupons, checkbooks, stamps, and various other things we use from day to day. Made with an attractive oak veneer and measuring 7 3/4" high x 17" long x 7" wide, it sits compactly on a desk or countertop and helps keep at least one part of our life well-organized.

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A few pages later, we came to realize that our long-standing conceit that an ice cube is merely an ice cube was disproved. For one, Ice Tube Trays (two for $12.99) are designed to produce...