Do they/are they? On the subway this morning I saw a young woman with a pink i-Phone.
If it was bright pink, that would have been a protective plastic case. Those come in all colors and patterns. But iPhones themselves come in pink-gold metallic as well as regular gold, silver, black and possibly white. Mine is regular gold. When I buy things like that, I do think about making it easy to find them in my purse. It's rarely a problem with my purse, because I keep my phone in a special pocket by itself. I like purses with lots of sections and pockets, also for this reason. And my current purse, while black on the outside, has multiple pockets and sections and is lined in lime green, which also aids findability.
In a marketing training I attended last week, the guy told the story of how Apple decided to distinguish itself by producing its computers in a variety of bright colors. Then they hired Steve Jobs back (after he'd been banished for a while) and he said nope, we're going to make everything white. And to this day, white -- in its products and its stores -- is a big factor in Apple's "brand."
Those are all good ideas, though, Lee. Maybe the next time someone screws up your best-laid plans by taking your mother's colorful straws, for example, you could leave a note, either asking for their return or asking them to please not take her things.
Before you write your book, I highly recommend reading Atul Gawande's
Being Mortal. He talks a lot about depersonalization in nursing homes and some successful efforts (by rare administrators, not by patients or families) to fight it.
