#856: Speech-balloon

It’s possible to compound the effects of a ‘difficult’ phonecall by dropping, or slamming down, the handset when one party decides the conversation is over.

Like the inflammatory email sent on a Friday afternoon, this careless gesture is almost always taken by the listener as a sign of petulant disrespect. Spleen venting usually does nobody any good (not to mention the damage to the hardware and the reaction on Monday morning).

Today’s invention is simply an add-on to all existing landline phones in the form of a small, self adhesive resilient, bladder (shaped like a partly-inflated lifebelt and with a single inlet/outlet duckbill valve). This would be centred around the mouthpiece grille, so as not to interfere with the disconnect button near the earpiece.

When the phone unit is set down calmly, the lifebelt becomes slightly flattened as a small volume of air is expelled.

Dash it back into place, however, and the bladder will resist the sudden efflux of air, so that no crashing noise is generated and the phone settles back into its cradle gradually under the weight of the handset, as before.