By: Vincent Wang

Dear Amazon buyers,

Hi! If you can’t tell, this is a review for the “Beach Ball” that should have, and I stress this, should have been a great piece of fun for a beach day.

I was completely and utterly wrong. I was expecting a beach ball that was the size of one of those regular beach balls. You know, the ones that normal people bring to the beach. The picture shown for the product on the website showed exactly that. Expecting the item shown, I bought it. Turns out, they lied. I would sorely like to send whoever chose that picture for the product into orbit. It’s because of them that my whole trip was ruined.

I didn’t open the package until I got to the beach. Look at me, so innocent and unaware about what was going to happen. I had brought an inflation tool with me, and I intended to blow it up at the beach. Everything went smoothly, and was going to go well; or so I thought. Up until I finally started trying to blow it up, I thought the ball was normal.

I sat there for AN HOUR, struggling to blow it up. I would have given up if I weren’t as stubborn as my dog when she finds a critter she so desperately wants to eat. Other people walked by and stared. I hated it. When I finally managed to get it inflated, I actually heard someone say, “And a round of applause!” Everyone was happy. Everyone but me, at least.

Do you know how big the beach ball was? I don’t believe there are enough words to describe this terrible monstrosity. Did you have that classmate that always thought they were correct and went out of their way to give unsolicited advice to unwilling victims? Remember how big their ego was as they walked around with their advice they thought everyone wanted? Multiply that by 100. Now putting them side by side comparing the ball’s size to the classmate’s ego’s size is like comparing the mass of the sun to the mass of the moon.

Then, the wind blew. You can probably guess what happens now. The ball, filled with air, was easily moved by the wind. It rushed past the beachgoers, causing terrified screams across the beach as it knocked over small children, umbrellas, chairs, tents. Anything that was in its way really. I could only gape and stare at the monster that I had created. Do you know what it feels like to watch everybody scream at something you did? And it wasn’t even for nefarious reasons? It’s like having a baby cry in your arms and you have no idea what to do (and you made it cry too), only much, much worse.

I am now banned from the beach for life. I do not recommend this ghastly product unless you would like to cause widespread terror on the beach, and establish yourself as an infamous household name that will be known through the centuries, forever cursed to be known as, “The Beachball Monster.”