How hard can it be to pick a water kettle?

That's what I thought. I went to walk around some deparmtent stores in downtown Zurich yesterday, looking to buy an electric water kettle, in anticipation of our move to an apartment which will not be furnished with everything we need. There were white and black ones, and metal. The brands (like Braun or Bodum) which I recognized seem to start at around $70. Well, okay, I know that some things are going to be expensive here, and I want something that will last us a long time.

White, black, or silver. That's not so bad.

And then I went to another store and was confronted with this.

The colors! This is where my slightly tacky sense of taste will need to be tempered by M's more refined vision. When it comes to picking eyeglasses, I'm always shocked by his choice, think it is too weird, and once he gets them I think "wow, those are really nice!"

So maybe he can do the same for picking a water kettle, I think. Ok, so the kettle could be the one really colorful item in the white, grey floor and grey/blue granite counter kitchen. I secretly (well, not anymore now that I've written it down) liked the purple one which is really more pinkish in color than the photo, if I remember correctly.
So here is the kitchen again.


And the floor in there.





And the counter top. Now we've wanted to add some color, just so that the long, grey winter isn't completely depressing. But is a purple (or red) kettle too much?

Yes, these are the trivial questions that occupy my mind when it isn't thinking about learning in museums, the goal of an exhibit on a satellite, or my status as a member of a "sensitive" population during Swine Flu season.

The inner dialogue as I stand before the rainbow of Bodum water kettles goes something like this..."The kitchen seems a bit....straightlaced for a lot of plastic/rubber color, doesn't it? But we'd like to have an apartment which is more eclectic than matchy-matchy. Maybe this just means I need to be careful on which items are colorful. Well, at least there is only one thing to decide on as far as color goes. The yellow-green water kettle could be nice, too, now that I think about it. And then all the other, standard appliances we get in silver maybe. Yeah, that would work. Whew. Ok. Maybe this won't be so hard after all."

At which point I turn around and see....

Gah!!!