The Best Thing That Happened This Week: The Pumpkin Spice Phone

Love pumpkin spice lattes? How about a pumpkin spice phone? Photograph by bhofack2/Getty Images

Our birthday happens to cozy right up to Halloween, and as a child, we preferred pumpkin pie to cake to fete the occasion. Anybody can have birthday cake, our reasoning went; there’s only one time of year when you can have pumpkin pie.

Alas, that reasoning’s long outdated. Our collective cultural obsession with cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg has now birthed such epicurean obscenities as pumpkin spice oatmeal, pumpkin spice Cheerios, pumpkin spice English muffins, pumpkin spice peanut butter, and even pumpkin spice Spam. But hey, why stop at merely ingesting this Starbuckian Colossus, this once-autumnal abomination now unleashed on us even before Labor Day? Why not pumpkin spice multi-purpose air freshener? Pumpkin spice deodorant? Pumpkin spice dog treats? Why should your little Bowser be deprived of such cinnamon-y joy?

On the off chance that this aromatherapeutic miasma isn’t already making you lightheaded, here comes a Collegeville company with a, shall we say, idiosyncratic way in which to engulf yourself in olfactory ecstasy: the pumpkin spice telephone. That’s right: Recent Communications, Inc., has announced a limited-edition pumpkin spice-scented office-phone handset. According to director of marketing Charlotte Conroy, “People spend a lot of time sitting at their desks and on the phone … so we thought of a way to extend the seasonal scent of pumpkin spice past that morning coffee drink.” Um. Recent Communications admits, in the very fine print, that this product doesn’t actually exist — but! If demand is strong enough, they’ll get it done. We’re not sure whether to applaud their willingness to push pumpkin spice past the point of parody or simply be appalled.