A Letter to the Maker of a Certain Battery Operated Bubble Machine (You Know Who You Are)

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you so much for taking the time to create such an adorable little product! My three-year-old’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when she realized that Santa had brought her the pink plastic bubble-blowing monkey of her dreams. As you can imagine, when she saw that BBM even came with his very own bottle of bubbles (okay, it was a few droplets of watered down cheap-ass generic dish soap, but how was she to know this? The kid’s three. She’s hardly a bubble connoisseur.), she nearly wept with joyous anticipation.

Except—and you probably can guess what’s coming here—the effing thing didn’t work. Oh, once I unearthed eight AA batteries and finally fashioned them in the totally random configuration your malevolent designer thought would be fun to torture parents with, I will admit that the monkey’s mouth did open and close as the box promised. His frightening little bubble-wand arm did rotate and dip into his watery soap-filled mouth between yaps. And what sounded like a tiny burst of air did gurgle up from his throat when the watery soap-dipped arm was positioned in front of his scary clown-like lips. But—and this was slightly anticlimactic, I have to admit—no bubbles came out. Not a single one. We watched in disappointed horror as slippery, watery slop dripped down the poor monkey’s bubble-wand arm, over and over. And over. And over.

Hum, click, drip. Hum, click drip.

The worst part is, my kind-hearted daughter feels sorry for what I have since christened the Stupid, Goddamned, Ugly, Useless Troll-Monkey. So instead of momentarily enjoying him and then letting him fade into oblivion like a good, cheap toy, I have to stare at his worthless, repulsive form—which now sits right by her bed—for the rest of my life.

So even though we’re obviously not returning him, I would still appreciate if you would refund my eleven dollars. It’s the least you could do.

Thanks in advance.*

Sincerely,

Jenna

* Unless you don’t refund my money. In that case, rot in hell, you evil, greedy bastard.