doodad

But I think my favorite is an odd-looking metallic doodad called the Hush-A-Phone.

Some can stay where they fell for years, even decades, until as a New York Times editorial put it, "somebody — often, a child spotting a brightly colored, battery-size doodad on the ground — accidentally sets it off."

A merchant or a street performer doesn’t have to buy a special cash register or another pricey doodad to take money that isn’t cash.

Until the kids were old enough to appreciate what was inside a box — rather than the act of ripping wrapping paper and having a new doodad — I let the grandparents buy the presents while I enriched their future.

Now, the thing about HP doing this, specifically, is that the company has been trying to make this kind of fabric-bound folio luxury doodad a thing for years.