Lost in translation

Meet Coco the fish. He is not Nemo. He is “amusive.” He is my son’s new favorite toy.

The Baby’s uncle Steve and aunt Bibi got this gem for him from a street vendor in Thailand. As you can see by the packaging, no one was really checking the translation closely. I looked it up, just in case, but amusive is not a word. At least not in English.

This is one funky fish (hey, now that would have been a better name!). It rolls around the floor with “real fish motion,” plays “dulcet” music and “immediately change direction when hitting.” In other words, it rolls around the floor blaring a 10-second loop of techno music, crashes into furniture and toys and turns around. Its tail has strobe lights. It makes The Cat nervous and engrosses The Baby. Did I mention that you can’t turn off the sound?

Aside from the wacky name, oddball adjectives and poor phrasing, there are also sentences on the package that make no sense whatsoever. My favorite? The very top of the package, which exclaims, “Let we play go!”

Tee-hee.