Some years ago, an ex of mine gave me a Hello Kitty pencil box for Christmas. I have no idea why he thought I wanted anything Hello Kitty-branded, or why he felt I was in particular need of a pencil box, but thus was his gift. (He was not, shall we say, the most perceptive soul I've ever dated.)

Its uselessness-to-me aside, I've kept the silly thing, not out of any sense of wistfulness, but because the damn thing is actually really well constructed. It's made of silvery-gray aluminum and solid as hell, with steel-reinforced edges and hinges. The branding is fairly subdued, with hearts and flowers and Kitty faces embossed into the metal but not, you know, screamingly obvious unless one were to look closely. I just haven't had any idea what to put in it. It's too small to hold ammunition, too bulky for a makeup kit, far too large for random desk paraphernalia to become anything other than a tangled mess in it, and while I do actually have a stupendous collection of coloured pencils and drawing pencils (a wonderful birthday present from my husband), they came in nice metal boxes of their own and there are far too many to fit in the Hello Kitty box anyway.

However!

Tonight, while I was rummaging through a box, I found a couple of soldering irons which I don't use at home. My Weller soldering station (also a lovely gift from my husband) is far more versatile, but it's not especially luggable. I also happened across a small multimeter which I don't use at home (thanks to the super-fancy multimeter complete with RS232 port that my dad got me for Christmas a few years ago).

"Aha!" I said, and scrounged up the Hello Kitty box.

I am now the proud owner of a portable soldering kit, with a Weller 25W general-purpose iron, a Weller 12W pencil-tip iron suitable for small, touchy jobs (e.g. surface-mount work), half a pound of solder, and a digital multimeter. DevHouse 26, here I come!