I am a person of limited means. This does not mean I am immune from the occasional ridiculous purchase. One thing I love is novelty tins, the kind that fudge or biscuits come in. Most recently, I bought a brand of ground coffee not my own purely because it came in a gorgeous black tin with irises on it, and I knew I could refill it with my preferred organic beans at a later time, which I have done. Two Christmases ago, during the post-holiday season, I bought a tin of awful biscuits purely because the tin they came in looked like a stack of books.

I have a problem, I know, but I also a) am a crafting person and b) have mice in my kitchen, so tins get used in my house, rather than stuck on a shelf and forgotten.

Novelty tins and such come in early in Australia, because we don’t really celebrate Halloween at all, and Thanksgiving is not an Australian holiday. So, Christmas merch turns up in mid-September. My birthday was the 15th, and, sure enough, in town three days later, I spot the first cheap and nasty Santa crap outside a kitchenware store.

So it wasn’t a massive surprise that while shopping with my partner in our regular supermarket, I saw this, and immediately gasped. “It’s hideous. I need it.”

Because copperbadge regularly documents hideous merchandise, we took an immediate photograph for posterity. My partner was quick to point out how unnaturally close they’re all standing to each other to fit on the tin. Maybe they’re not wearing pants, it was eventually decided, since Steve’s O-face suggests he might be on the receiving end of some Hulk-lovin’. We discussed this conversationally standing next to the milk fridge, at normal vocal volume. Since entering our thirties, we’re officially in the no-fucks-to-give zone of caring who might overhear.

Because it’s only $5, it ends up in our trolley with our already-over-budget weekly shop.

“What will you put in it?” my partner asks, demanding answers, some kind of vague justification for buying it.

“Buttons or something,” I say. It won’t be buttons. I don’t know what it’ll be, but I’ll find a thing to go in it.

I’d noticed when I picked it up how light it was. Not light enough to be empty, but certainly light enough that I didn’t even bother trying to claim I just wanted the sweets. I was buying the terrible tin.

Later that evening, my partner opened it, and this is what was inside.

Eight tiny offbrand sweets, of the kind you tend to buy from a $2 shop by the kilo. (Yes, I know that’s six, we ate two.) Eight sweets, in the whole $5 tin.

So, I have yet to find something to put inside it, but I own my first fandom tin, and maybe it’s silly of me, but I think the fact that it’s driven me to out-loud laughter twice and made my partner make buttsex jokes in a rural supermarket, means it’s money well spent.