You might be asking yourself, "Ew, what is that ugly THING doing HERE?" And yes, let's take a moment to celebrate this ugly, ugly mushroom ashtray. Yes, that's an ashtray. An ashtray is so hideous that it may be able mark this year of 2007 as not only the year of Jailbird Paris, or the Introduction of the iPhone, or Are We Still at War? Really?, but also as: The Year of the World's Most Ugliest Ashtrays Ever Produced....by the Oprah-dissing Hermès.

So why feature such a monstrosity? Well, because I am trying to teach myself a valuable lesson of, "Just because Derek Lam designed it does not make it liquid gold." And that's across the board, really. How many times have I bought a piece of furniture because it was "designer" and it was on sale, and then ended up chucking it or giving it away to some woeful college-bound offspring of my mum's friends? Too many to own up to. I'm printing this mushroom ashtray in all its gilt-edged glory and $400 price tag, and tacking it up on my refrigerator as a reminder to edit, edit, EDIT all of my future decor purchases.