Was he being serious about his offer to wash Taffy so I could test her out? “Yeah—I mean, that’s fine with me,” he replies. “That’s perfectly fine. There is absolutely no possibility of catching anything at all. You can do it NOW or later when you come back. I was not kidding.”

The only downside to Taffy is her weight, but “you can’t demand a life-size doll that looks and feels exactly like a woman and expect the doll to weigh 10 pounds and throw it over your shoulder.” Another issue is that dolls assume the ambient temperature. He is very interested to learn that McMullen is finalizing a design for a remote-control internal heating system so his customers won’t have to use an electric blanket.