A chair with strange dimensions has baffled people who spotted it on a furniture forum. The chair in the image has what looks like a half seat, with the other half being some sort of shelf. It wasn’t long before someone pointed out that the chair is actually what’s called a “gossip bench.” The chair allows the user to sit and have the telephone resting on the attached ledge. Once that was pointed out, users began to comment. “Now I feel really old…..I’ve used one like this my entire childhood and teens….it’s a phone desk,” wrote one person. “I have one! It belonged to my great-grandmother and has an extra little shelf for telephone books and notepads,” another person commented. Most telephone benches were made in the 1920s through the 1950s and were often placed in hallways of people’s homes since most families only had one phone back then. As home telephones got smaller and less awkward to use, the need for telephone benches gradually waned. When cordless phones came along in the 1980s, the gossip could literally be taken anywhere, making the furniture completely obsolete. Telephone benches today are considered antique collectors items, with one from the 1930s being sold recently for $1,195.
