Dec 28, 2018 4 min read

The shark came swimming across the computer screen, and like the sheep I sometimes can be, I followed the fish to the “Buy Now” page. One click and 28 bucks later, the deed was done. It would be a fun surprise for Christmas.

“Will you help me put it together,” I asked the farmer. He raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “Um, who else would?”

The “Air Shark” is a zeppelin that swims through the air by remote control. The video ads feature kids screaming with delight as the shark sails overhead. I pictured the gang at Christmas brunch, gathered around the table, as the shark floats into view, the music from “Jaws” blasting from my phone. An even better plan had the shark sailing through my daughter’s bedroom door as she settled into bed for the night. What a laugh we’d have!

I must have pictured the shark arriving in a big box, fully inflated and assembled and ready to go.

I should have read the reviews:

1. The shark is a mylar balloon, and as such, must be filled with helium. Off to the party store I went, where after the insertion of five bucks’ worth of inert noble gas, I walked to my car with a balloon the size of a Macy’s parade Snoopy and stuffed it into the back seat. The shark would poke me in the back of the head all the way home.

2. The mechanism is a series of fins, motors and a zillion teeny bits. The customer review page is littered with tales of frustration, anger, sadness and depression as customers described their efforts, often in vain, to get the thing running. Typical comment: “I have a degree in mechanical engineering and it took me four hours.”

Christmas Eve, the farmer and I pulled the pieces out of the box, saw the two pages of densely-typed instructions, and decided to postpone.

The next morning I asked my son to give it a try. Thirty minutes later he emerged from the basement, looking defeated.

“That will take all day,” he said.

There would be no Sharky surprise for Christmas. That night, under the twinkle lights of the tree, the farmer and I dug in. The instructions not only made no sense but had huge black numbers stamped over them, obscuring key words. Case in point, I worked for 40 minutes trying to insert wires into the groove in the tail fins before discovering that the big numeral 4 had covered the part that said that’s what the little gray clips were for. The clips were the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

The farmer can build and fix anything. During a long power outage, he routed our little generator through both the furnace and the water heater; even he was flummoxed by the shark. There was sweating, yelling and swearing. My job was to hold the huge, bobbing shark while the farmer attached things to it. Greased pig contests came to mind.

It took us three hours. I let go and the shark rose to the ceiling. Smoothie the dog went crazy.

Did the shark swim around like it does in the ads? Sort of. It feels fragile. We decided not to play with the shark until the kids are here. I tied it to a kitchen chair, and went to bed.

The next morning, the Air Shark was missing. While we slept, it escaped, sailed into the den and got stuck in a corner of the ceiling. Its top fin had fallen off.

It landed on the Christmas tree.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.