“Dolls with no little girls around to mind them were sort of creepy under any conditions.” 
– Stephen King

I never owned dolls.  They’ve always creeped me out.  I remember as a little girl I had a friend who owned a collection of them.  Her house was always overly clean and very red – blood-red carpets, red accents in her kitchen and red towels in her bathroom.  I liked her because she was a year older and would tell me about boys, while her dolls listened in.   When I would stay the night at her house I would lay awake, wondering if the dolls were going to come to life and smother me with their porcelain hands or crocheted mini-blankets…while she slept like a little doll baby.   When my daughter asked me for a doll I caved and bought her one.  Although I also bought a wooden case with a latch, a coffin if you will, that the doll could “sleep” in at night.  I think she liked it in there…