My object is an electric toothbrush. It is around eight inches tall, I think, with a pulsing blue light near its base. It comes with a holder and charger that can hold a few brush-heads, but I only have the one that you will see perched atop the base itself -- each head is expensive!
I bought this toothbrush when I was in Washington DC, working for a nonprofit, trying to live under a strict austerity regime. I lived in small room with a thin secondhand mattress. The job paid poorly but the health care was good, and I was able to afford this fancy toothbrush under the dental plan. I remember justifying the purchase to myself, saying that if I was going to indulge any vanity it should be a vanity related to teeth, because tooth care is fundamentally practical and wholesome.
I remember explaining this over the phone to the woman who became my first serious girlfriend, and it amazes me that she could have found something like that charming, or at least non-repellent. I remember even ending one phone conversation with her explaining I was just about to screw the toothbrush into the wall in my room, and I was excited about this.
The brush became a sort of totem in an otherwise spare room. Its blue light (which flashes until the brush is fully charged and then stays solid blue) was like my nightlight. Or a lighthouse. Or some other Fitzgerald-type beacon. It was present throughout what ended up being a powerfully formative year; formative for better and for worse.