Vending machine
The first known vending machine was designed in the 1st century AD and sold holy water for a coin.
Pencil
Pencil ‘lead’ has never been lead; it is graphite, which people mistook for lead in the 1500s.
Eraser
Before rubber erasers, people rubbed out pencil with breadcrumbs, and ‘rubber’ got its name from rubbing out.
Bubble wrap
Bubble wrap was invented in 1957 as a textured wallpaper, which nobody wanted.
Glass
Glass is not a slow liquid; old windows are thicker at the bottom because of how they were made.
Envelope
An envelope is a piece of paper folded round another piece of paper so that the second one cannot see out.
Towel
A towel dries things by getting wet itself, the only household object that gets wetter the more it works.
Match
The lighter was invented in 1823, three years before the friction match it was presumably meant to replace.
List of things that are empty
This list of empty things is not itself empty, which got it banned from appearing on itself after a vote.
Drawer
Every home has one drawer that holds everything that isn’t in any other drawer, including a key to nothing.