Tall, Dark and Handy
He’s a real swell guy--the strong, silent type. Having the appearance of a living, breathing 6-foot-tall, 180-pound macho man, Safe-T-Man is really just an inflatable doll made of latex, weighs only 7 pounds and deflates into a neat 2-foot-square package.
He was designed as a visual deterrent to prevent car jackings, but even Barbara LesStrang, the doll’s creator, didn’t realize how realistic-looking he was until she traveled through a McDonald’s drive-thru in her BMW convertible with Safe-T-Man buckled in as her passenger. “I ordered one drink, and the gal stuck her head out and said, ‘Well, doesn’t he want anything?”
LesStrang dreamed up the idea in 1993 when she needed to drive from Santa Barbara, where she lived, to Palm Springs for a speech she was scheduled to deliver. Her husband was ill and couldn’t travel with her. He suggested she take a friend to protect herself.
“It was during that trip that I became outraged,” says LesStrang, 63. “We’re supposed to be living in the land of the free. I grew up in a time when it was safe, but our society has changed. That’s when I started thinking--if you can’t have a real person there, you can have a simulated, strong-appearing male presence.”
Not long afterward, the former California Singer sewing machine champion sewed together the Safe-T-Man prototype, using a painted Halloween mask for a face and a wig that “looked like something out of a Hair Club for Men reject pile,” says son and company co-founder Christian, 27, who is earning his master’s in entrepreneurial studies from Babson College in Maryland.
The LesStrangs sold the stuffed version in a few Santa Barbara stores before shopping for a manufacturer in China and making the doll inflatable, or air-filled, as they prefer to call it.
“We try not to use the word ‘inflatable,’ ” Christian LesStrang says. “It makes you think of the other kind of dolls out there.”
Safe-T-Man is “as light as a feather” and easy to deflate, Barbara says. Available through the Ohio-based Safety Zone catalog, he costs $109.95, which includes a free repair patch in case he springs a leak. For an extra $9.95, customers get an inflator pump, and for an additional $24.95, the air-filled bodyguard comes with a plain blue tote bag for easy transport in his deflated state.
Safe-T-Man’s owner may dress him to taste.
“My Safe-T-Man shops at the Gap,” says Christian. “Other Safe-T-Men shop at their favorite stores.”
As part of her work, Barbara LesStrang regularly comes into contact with widows and the elderly who use Safe-T-Man for protection in their homes, as well as in their cars. Barbara, who wrote a grief recovery book, “AfterLoss: A Recovery Companion for Those Who Are Grieving” (Nelson Communications, 1992), and who trains clergy and caregivers in how to better understand the needs of people who have lost a loved one, says one client purchased two Safe-T-Men and set them up in her house to look like they were playing chess.
“If you leave him in your living room and forget he’s there when you walk back in, he’ll scare the daylights out of you,” Christian says.
While he believes Safe-T-Man is most commonly purchased for personal protection, Christian is certain that more than a few of the 35,000 purchasers since Safe-T-Man’s introduction in 1995 have had other uses in mind. He says he has heard of people who use Safe-T-Man as a freeway passenger to get to work faster or who keep him in their cars while parked illegally, though Christian claims he has never used his product for such purposes.
“Absolutely not,” he deadpans. “We don’t endorse Safe-T-Man for use in the carpool lanes.”
For information, call Safety Zone at (800) 999-3030.