Friday, November 5, 2010

IDEA: The Interior Doorbell

Why don't we all have doorbells on the insides of our front doors? When confronted by a visitor with which we don't care to speak, we could discreetly press our hidden inside doorbell and trigger, elsewhere in the house, the sound of a baby crying. Or a smoke alarm. A tea kettle. Whatever.

Or hey, all four. "I'm sorry–I'd love to discuss my immortal soul, but my tea kettle appears to have set off the smoke detector and frightened my baby."

For some reason I feel like I'm ripping off the blog Ironic Sans, where my friend David posts ideas like this all the time. Go visit that, maybe.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ingenious.

Brian Biggs said...

Seems like an overly-complex way to just say "no thanks not interested" and shut the door.
We keep hobo warning signs scrawled on our porch. The nuts seem to get it.

David said...

I hold no exclusivity to the Idea Blog genre. In fact I'd bet you have a ton of great ideas you could share. We'd love to read 'em.

This one reminds me of http://www.sorrygottago.com/ which won't help you when someone annoying is at the door, but could help in a similar way when someone annoying is on the phone. They provide background noises for wherever you're supposed to be (office, airport, etc), and for things that you need to get off the phone to tend to (doorbell, crying baby, etc).

David said...

One more thing... Who's Davis?

Adam Rex said...

Whoops, typo. Now corrected.

Adam Rex said...

And seriously, Brian–you're suggesting I just be honest and direct with a perfect stranger? We're very different people.

Kitty Sparks said...

You'd have to remember which ones you've had, in case anyone ever asks about the baby you forgot you fictionally had.
"What baby?"
"I heard it crying last week when I came by with my son's Boy Scout popcorn order sheet."
"Oh, right. Um..it died."
"Oh god! Of what?"
"Um. Crying."

Adam Rex said...

Oh, excellent point, Kitty.

Nina Crittenden said...

We usually run and hide when solicitors come by, your solution has a certain charm that I like. Please let us know if you have any solutions for telemarketers. :)

Z-Kids said...

My brother and I had a paper route as kids, and part of the gig involved personally going door to door collecting payment each month. Never pleasant. In one house the residents would crouch down behind the door and bark when we came collecting. Which was crazy -- we knew they didn't have a dog -- we delivered a paper to them everyday after all.
- AZ