
A charismatic door‑to‑door salesman named Ira stops at the modest home of a newlywed housewife, eager to showcase the latest breakthrough from the U.S. Robot Company: a line of domestic robots that promise to be indistinguishable from human servants. He boasts of the machines’ durability, customizable personalities, and even the option of “tiny blemishes” to make them feel more natural, turning a routine sales pitch into a curious dance of technology and desire. The woman, wary yet intrigued, questions the claims, comparing them to rival models from Amalgamated Androids and probing whether a perfect robot can truly fit into a home.
The story unfolds as a witty, slightly satirical look at mid‑century optimism about automation, exploring how persuasive salesmanship meets the intimate doubts of everyday life. Listeners will find humor in the exaggerated promises and tension in the subtle hints that even the most polished inventions may have hidden flaws.
Language
en
Duration
~11 minutes (11K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Greenleaf Publishing Company, 1955.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
Nov 12, 2021
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1927–2004
A mid-century science fiction writer with a sharp eye for social pressure, technology, and the strange ways people adapt to the future. His stories often pair brisk plotting with ideas about control, identity, and human behavior.
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