Since Austin often serves as a test market for consumer products, these may not be around long but, while they are, for $3.49 the buyer brings home much more than eight one-ounce packages of Snyder’s pretzel sticks with the salt still stuck to them. Along with them comes a ridiculously sturdy open-top corrugated-cardboard tray with sides just slightly taller than the height of an audio cassette.

As they are, these containers make great dividers for kitchen and other drawers and for pantry shelves. As is or gussied up in wrapping paper to cover the green, yellow, brown, and white color scheme, these high-sided trays will hold about 20 audio cassettes, about three dozen CDs in plastic jewel cases, or hundreds of 3-by-5-inch index cards, keeping the labels visible or the cards, for instance, easy to riffle through quickly. Because cassettes and index cards don’t stick up above the sides of these open-top holders, they can be stacked into towers that are sturdy and quite tall.

Best of all, these help a person resist the annual compulsion to check out The Container Store. Anyone who’s ever been drawn by this allure knows what I mean; and no fair using the Elfa sale as an excuse. “Snyder’s of Hanover Sticks Lunch Pack” was on market shelves all over town before Halloween. Lately this item has been found most easily at Central Market.