it's all about the context

I needed a coffee grinder, so I walked up the street to the upmarket (to the point of silliness) kitchen store. (I live close to one of those 'European' downtowns with stores and restaurants.)

In there I found a German grinder, identical to one I owned 15 years ago.

Bought it.

Then I looked around for a bit. New in the store, at least since my last visit, was a shelf full of thermos pots. The kind your [Swedish] grandma used, but she used to call hers a 'TV-pot', since it allowed her to refill her cup without leaving the room while watching TV.

Anyway. The familiar looking pots were sitting there next to the 'Tuscan' plates, the 'Provencal' yellow ceramic bowls with roosters on them, and the comes in every shade of the rainbow heatproof but clearly overpriced Le Creuset spatulas.

I own 5 of those spatulas myself. But the thermos pots still made me laugh. Not that they are not practical, because they are. But to me they belong at Target.