Dear Amazon, EBay, and all people who shop online,

The phrase, “utterly useless and makes me question the competence of my (apparently) criminally moronic species” is thrown around a lot these days. It fits best, however, in a rant about the ridiculous things that can be found for sale on the Internet and what it says about the future of our kind.

Though it might seem like I’m quoting product pitches I found on stolen note cards of the desk of the alarmingly erratic Gary Busey, I’m not. The following products are 100 percent real, and I am sure you can find them with a quick Google search.

For centuries, books and literacy have been a sign of at least slight competence. But when you can actually go out and purchase a book called, “How To Avoid Huge Ships,” there is something wrong. I’d like to think the title is a metaphor for drifting through the shipyard that is metropolitan life, but unfortunately, it’s not. It’s literally a hardcover book about what precautions you can take to avoid crashing into huge ships. Not just ships, mind you, but ships so big that they require the word ‘huge’ and the majority of the picture on the cover.

Hey parents! Do you like horses? Or are you into weird kinky sex stuff that my editor has informed I should stick away from describing on a public forum? Great! Do you also have kids? Great! Do you want to traumatize them and make their inevitable psychotherapy sessions much more interesting for the therapist? Great! Then you should buy the awesomely named ‘Daddle.’

What is the Daddle, you ask? Well, allow me to explain. It is a saddle you can place on the back of a father, that the children can ride and ‘have fun.’ And by have fun, I of course mean feed their subconscious with content to fill their nightmares with. If you don’t have kids, that’s perfectly alright! If you own the Daddle, you are probably the sort of guy who doesn’t mind the occasional kidnapping!

How about a product that fights your ineptitude?

Are you so inept that you commonly find yourself asking the day of the week and also happen to own ZERO devices that show you the date? Then grab your credit card, hop on the Internet (which can inform you of the date pretty quick. Just saying.), and shell out about $40.00 + tax for the day of the week clock! This SkyMall-endorsed product (so you know it’s legit) is a clock that is separated into seven sections, one for each day of the week. I’m not kidding.

Are you an alcoholic and do you commonly lose things? No, I’m talking big things, like full size wine glasses. Oh you actually do lose things like that? That’s a wee bit sad. Well, the internet has got you covered. Meet the wine glass necklace! This un-genius — I mean ingenious — product hangs around your neck and holds your wine glass around your neck so you can’t lose it, much like when your mother would staple the field trip check to your shirt so your teachers can see how stupid you are. (It got awkward around junior year of high school.)

I don’t even have a pitch for this next item, because it doesn’t really make any sense. It is essentially a branding iron that you use on steaks on the grill. Because who doesn’t like the taste of melted douchebaggery in their food?

Quick science quiz, (who am I kidding? If you’re still reading this, your sense of humor is like mine and you’re probably not a chemistry major), what are the two things that makeup the majority of the air you breathe? The answers are oxygen and carbon dioxide. You actually don’t really want the carbon dioxide as much as the oxygen, but it’s a good thing that there is plenty of oxygen to go around.

But, if you’re the kind of selfish jerk who insists, “No! I want my own personal supply of oxygen!” Then you’re in luck! In my recent trip south of the border, I read a lot of SkyMall and remember commenting to the big fella next to me about how stupid the personal oxygen supply system is. He responded, and I quote, “zzzzzzzzzz” *snore* “zzzzzzzzz.” Whatever, I thought it was funny.

Are you a golfer? Do you have no qualms with public urination, but only if nobody knows? Well, enjoy the UroClub! This empty, prosthetic club serves as an empty chassis for your pee while on the golf course. Just hold it like you’re putting and do your business. It’s not like there’s a ton of trees around or anything. (I refrained from the multiple Tiger Woods jokes that should have gone in between every sentence in that paragraph.)

If you own the UroClub, you probably would also be interested in the Privacy Scarf. This ‘scarf’ wraps around your head and encases the area between your head and a screen you are looking at in a shroud that hides ‘whatever you don’t want to share with the world’. The ‘privacy scarf’ should be renamed to the ‘watch porn in public scarf’ because I guarantee that nobody is using it to hide their credit card numbers from the people around them, as the product suggests.

From Russia, with sarcasm,

Dylan