For years, an assortment of fly-by-night brands on Amazon have been peddling so-called HEPA air purifiers. Without knowing anything about their efficacy or even what HEPA stands for, the whole market seemed like snake oil. How else could you explain the nonsense names of what Amazon identifies as the leading brands? RIGOGLIOSO, JINPUS, ASLOTUS, to name a few. (My favorite is a clever brand called “THE THREE MUSKETEERS III M,” a patently obvious attempt to capitalize on the credibility of the U.S. company 3M.)

Now that we are told to live in constant fear of a flying, unseeable virus, it seems like a good as time as any to revisit these machines. Do they actually work? For most of 2020, that question was purely academic; air purifiers flew off the digital shelves at a such a clip that you could not have gotten one even if you wanted to. But now that supply chains have stabilized to a degree, it is worth asking if air purifiers are worth the investment.

In theory, these HEPA-filtered devices remove 99.97% of particles from the air. However, despite what you’ve heard from scaremongers, you are unlikely to contract COVID from stray particles just floating around. If someone in your household has the coronavirus, you are likely to get it from being in contact with them. The quality of the air is unlikely to affect that one way or the other. Furthermore, even though an air purifier removes particles from the air, it does not kill them. This could make cleaning out the filter especially dangerous, as you are guaranteed to come into contact with whatever it picked up. If you’re like me, this all sound like much more trouble than it’s worth.

Intelabe HEPA Air Purifier Air Filter with Fragrance Sponge Air Cleaner Eliminate Smoke, Dust,Pollen, Dander Air Purifiers for Home, Bedroom, Living Room, Kitchen and Office — $43.99

Look, if you want to waste $50 on some OEM Chinese air purifier for the peace of mind, like the one pictured above, I am not going to stop you. Just do not get bamboozled by the companies trying to price gouge you in the current climate. For example, there is no reason on earth that anyone should spend $800 for the Molekule Air:

Molekule Air Large Room Air Purifier with PECO Technology for Allergens, Pollutants, Viruses, Bacteria, and Mold, Silver — $799

I get that it looks cool. But if you buy it, you have to realize that what you are really getting is an art installation.

Over the summer, I cleaned out my grandfather’s house. He had accumulated a lot of furniture over the years, and I thought it would be a challenge to unload it all. I had never used Facebook Marketplace before, but I figured that would be a good place to start. Boy was it ever: I was shocked at how quickly everything went.

The demand for furniture is booming right now, specifically furniture that can be used in a home office. I ended up selling several very old tables to people who said they planned to use them as desks. And the traditional swivel chair in my grandfather’s office was snatched up in an instant.

I was reminded of this process by an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal: “Available: Thousands of Discounted Herman Miller Chairs for Your Home Office.” After being forced to work from home in ersatz home offices for half a year now, people are desperate for chairs that are not unpleasant to sit on hour after hour, day after day. The high demand means that finding affordable, sturdy and comfortable office chairs has become nearly impossible through the traditional channels, so home workers have started descending on liquidator warehouses. The thinking is: if they can’t get a chair brand new, perhaps they can get their hands on a chair that had once been used in a now empty corporate office. This works well for the liquidators, who discount the furniture, no longer having a steady supply of corporate offices to sell them to.

So, if you’ve been chugging through your work on the same rickety chair for the past six months, seek out your local liquidators. You will surely get a better deal than the $1,400 a classic Herman Miller Aeron chair will set you back on Amazon:

Herman Miller Aeron Ergonomic Chair – Size A, Graphite — $1,395

You are also guaranteed to have it in your possession immediately, something that is certainly not the case when it comes to ordering furniture online these days. With regard to the Aeron chair, Amazon currently only has the Size A (25.75 x 25.75 x 38.5″) in stock, leaving you out of luck if you need the Size B (27 x 27 x 41″) or Size C (18.5 x 28.2 x 43″) anytime soon. And even the Size A inventory is running out… Picking up a chair in person is probably your best bet.

Late last week, something tragic happened: Our coffeepot broke. Someone who shall remain nameless had the temerity (or, more accurately, maladroitness) to drop the pot, shattering it into a million tiny little pieces. I arose up that morning to the devastating news that, for the first time in as long as I can remember, there would be no coffee greeting my awakening.

This problem was not easily remedied. In the days immediately following the fiasco, one of the members of my household had to make a Starbucks run each morning. This solution may have stuck a Band-Aid on the issue, but it was clearly not economical in the long run. No, we needed a new coffeepot. But which one?

I’m not exactly sure who came up with the idea to eschew the traditional 12-cup Mr. Coffee machine you can buy at the Giant for $25. Still, someone did, and as a result, a 45-cup Hamilton Beach “coffee urn” arrived at our doorstep via Amazon Prime two days later. The thing was HUGE:

We’ve only been using the “coffee urn” for a few days now, but its advantages and disadvantages are quickly becoming clear. For one, the “formula” on how to make the coffee (i.e., the grounds to water ratio) is completely different from the typical drip coffee machine we were used to. Our first attempt at morning coffee was borderline undrinkable it was so weak. But we get a little bit closer to brewing the perfect cup on each attempt, and I’m optimistic that we can get there soon.

The coffee urn’s biggest selling point is that it stays hot all day, as long as you keep it plugged in. The quality of the coffee will not diminish as the day goes on, as in the case with joe made in your traditional coffeepot. This has proved quite the boon during quarantine, when you want just one cup for an after-lunch pick-me-up, but do not want to go through the hassle of brewing a whole new pot. The jury may still be out on if this is actually a better buy than what it replaced. But for just $49.99 there is no question it offers great value.