Tonight, I'm Cleaning Out My Closet

A look at some of the weird shit Amazon is trying to "sale" this Prime Day

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Welcome to Deep Dives, a bi-monthly subsection of TMI! Here, I dive deeper into my thoughts about a topic that doesn’t fit in the weekly newsletter.

*NOTE*: Today’s Deep Dive is, as usual, too long for email, so be sure to click “View entire message” to see the whole thing.

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Ah, Prime Day: Amazon’s yearly yard sale.

Every summer, our inboxes are filled with emails from different websites claiming they’ve found the “BEST PRIME DAY DEALS,” hoping we’ll read their lists and they can make ad revenue off us, or that we’ll click their links, buy something, and they can make affiliate money off us. And it’s always the same stuff — Amazon branded tech, electronics, and last generation AirPods.

In fact, even if you go straight to Amazon’s site and look at the Prime Day deals, that’s mostly what they’re advertising.

It’s all here, and it’s all *just* about to get replaced with a newer, fancier model

But this shit can’t all be good, right? Amazon has millions of listings.

Where are…the bad ones?

Well, if you scroll down that page of Deals™ just a bit further, you’ll notice something:

Yes, that’s right. There are 733¹ pages here.

Now, I know what you’re asking: who would sift through hundreds of pages of Prime Day Deals, looking for garbage?

That’s right. I dug deep, deep into Prime Day’s musty old closet.

I took the time to scroll past the electronics, the nearly expired face creams and serums, the rain showerheads, the solar powered chargers, the knockoff Roombas, the knockoff Post-its, the Vital Proteins collagen, and the toothpaste that will make your gums burn for some reason even though it looks identical to the tube you bought from Target² to find the weird shit they’re trying to clear out of their warehouses under the guise of a sale.

I must warn you: they don’t want us going this deep. They’ll take every opportunity to push you back to the beginning where all the Amazon shit is. If you accidentally click on a link without opening it in a new tab? Back to page one! THERE IS LITERALLY NO WAY TO GET BACK, HUNDREDS OF PAGES IN, EXCEPT SCROLLING DOWN EVERY SINGLE PAGE AND CLICKING ‘NEXT’. That 733 from before? It’s grayed out. Every page has to be selected in succession.

Which is why I, admittedly, only made it about 1/3 of the way through the trash. But that was enough — in fact more than enough.

So: I’ve organized this refuse into categories as best I can. First up:

Big Dog or Giant Product?

By the power of math, eyeballing, and estimates, we can make an educated guess.

Portable PVC Kid

Here’s an adorable doggie, ready to leap out of a pool that he was absolutely photoshopped into. We can see here in the description that the pool is “47.2x12 inches,” indicating that the pool is 47.2” in diameter and 12” tall.

This looks like a Golden Retriever to me. According to the AKC standards for Golden Retrievers: Males stand 23–24 inches in height at withers; females 21-1/2–22-1/2 inches.

Judging by the image above, I’d estimate the top of the 12” pool edge to be about here:

Which, by my calculations, leaves us with a dog that’s just under three feet tall.

This Golden Retriever is as tall as a doorknob. At the height of his back. Normal.

Here’s another little Goldie!! Riding in the backseat, just chilling.

Golden Retrievers are right around 32” tall when seated, and “good” headroom for the back of an SUV is about 40”. On average, SUVs are 69-70” wide.

Technically, the point of the ceiling here that should be above our dog is cropped in this image. If we assume that this Golden Retriever is averaged sized, and not 3 feet tall, that would make the headroom for this SUV 60”, or *almost* tall enough for me to fully stand on the back seat. If it remains in scale, the width of this SUV should be wide enough for you to lay your freshly cut Christmas tree down in and close both doors.

Alternatively, this dog has been hit by a shrink ray and is 2/3 the size of a normal Golden.

Here’s another cutie at home, resting on the couch.

Goldens are, on average, about 40” long. Three-seater couches are, on average, 84” long. Going off this image, we have either: a 10 foot couch, or another 2/3 size Golden.

Now, who wants to hang with the fam for movie night under one giant shared blanket??

Hang on a minute. This is the same dog from the couch pic. Is this the 10 foot couch?? How big is this family?!

Wait — the blanket is 120”x120”. It’s confirmed: the couch is normal, the blanket is massive, and the Golden Retriever is shrinking, slowly fading away into the entropy of the universe.

Fashion

This ring looks nice, honestly. Can’t see any downsides to it.

Anyway. I found some slides I thought I’d seen on TikTok —

But I couldn’t remember the brand. Were they rosyclo? Joomra? EQUICK? 😳

Captain, we’re being hailed. It’s the Joomra. Their rosyclo has been attacked by the EQUICK and they’re asking for assistance.

Maybe I’ll skip those and go for this bangin’ headband.

Or, there’s always this:

Is that a brain? Is this a metaphor? Help.

Murderer’s Corner

We’ve now reached the little portion of Amazon set aside for murderers and their murder tools.

“SuperHandy?” 60% claimed? 53% claimed?

Honorable Mention: this disembodied plastic arm you can practice your nail art techniques on.

Ghost Hoses

On multiple occasions, I clicked past SHOMEXTOL’s Garden Hose Holder - Freestanding Heavy Duty Hose…

And each time, was greeted with a different color there-but-not-there hose. I did some further digging, and it looks like they have a number of ghost-hose themed listings.

Yellow Ghost hose is, for some reason, Amazon’s Choice™

BEHOLD: Before, your old hose will be a tangled mess — but it will exist.

But AFTER, once you purchase the SHOMEXTOL Garden Hose Holder -Upgraded Water Hose Holder Holds 150-feet Hose,Sturdy Hose Stand and Hose Storage Rack,Freestanding Heavy Duty Hose Hanger for Lawn & Yard,Black, your hose will transition into it’s final form: ghost hose.

But have no fear — the ghost hose still works as intended (that is, if you intend to spray yourself, your yard, and your dog all at the same time without a nozzle or the hose actually being hooked to a spigot):

Finally, a normal sized dog

Extreme Supplements

LET’S GET READY TO RUM-BLEEEEEEEE!!

I can assure you, you are not.

It’s time to get JACKED FACTORY PRIMASURGE PARENT!!

That asterisk feels like it’s doing a lot of heavy lifting. Let’s get some more info from the product page.

All right. I think I’d rather hear from a couple of the actual customers. What do they think?

Thanks for the insight, fellas.

Next up, we have… “Harambe Blood” Pre Workout Powder.

I — you know what, let’s just move on.

Fruit Punch 😇

Great work, team. I’m ready to get jacked like Jason Voorhees. In fact, maybe I’ll just cruise back over to the Murderer’s Corner and pick up a few things.

Miscellaneous Home Goods

Here is “American Patriots” Irish flag and the image they chose for the very important inset.

Aw, nuts

Is this a potato masher, or a branding iron?

These here taters come from SquigglyLine Ranch

Here’s a cute pink “Mushroom” hole punch.

I’m just confused about how I’m supposed to Enjoy Myself™ with this hole punch when the pages are going to be falling out of my binder every 5 seconds. In what world would you choose a hole punch that PRE-RIPS the holes?

Cleaning supplies for potheads, anyone?

It’s possible these are 0% claimed because the intended audience is on the couch watching liminal space videos on TikTok.

Speaking of cleaning supplies…

That guy looks weirdly familiar.

Mister…Siga?

Impostor!

There’s — there’s something going on here. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.

At any rate, I think the one thing I know for sure is that I won’t feel weird at all carrying this to the beach this summer.

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Please don’t buy any of this stuff, but if you do, let me know how it goes.

Until next time, Roadhogs.

1. This seems to randomly change based on how many lightning deals there are at any one time, I guess? Anyway it’s at least been over 600 all day, don’t @ me.

2. There was an incident. Don’t ask.