More Fun Ideas for the Beach

NEW YORK â€”  Before you hit the beach for that end-of-season swim, stop by your HQ for extra surfside enrichment. All sales final, but the fun’s guaranteed past Labor Day!

* Why splurge on pricey hardcovers and quality paperbacks for summer reading fare when now there’s “The Beachside Books Throwaway Library�? Did we say “throwaway?� Every flimsy 50-cent Beachside volume automatically disintegrates after three hours into biodegradable mulch, perfect for building sandcastles, or makes a fine liquid hand soap.

Cost limitations require the same plot for all 250 titles--but what a plot! It’s a scientifically prepared mix of action, suspense, horror, sex, crime, wealth, power, romance and nostalgia for the vanished West that will leave you wanting more, long after you’ve finished reading!

* OK, no dogs on the beach; but who said anything about Giant Madagascar Sand Sloths? Cute as a Golden Retriever, barkless, hairless, almost sightless and happy on a simple leech-seaworm-maggot diet, the Madagascar Sand Sloth and its 1-mph pace won’t wear you out like a dog but will be a babe-magnet deluxe! “Ooh, what’s that smell?� “What’s that in his mouth?� “Is he dead?� And when your day at the beach is over, he’ll be happy to curl up for a five-week nap in any dark, humid subterranean grotto.

* Middle East terrorists know the value of screening out ultraviolet rays, not to mention radar signals and ultrasonic listening devices. That’s why they developed Geo-Shooter Jr.! Looks like any Russian Barkovnilak 22V-7 poison-dart gun--but fires a 60-second round of soothing sun lotion from a spray nozzle that lets you cover your whole body in a jiff, for hours of protection. From Old Sol, MI6, Surete, Mossad and the CIA!

* Pride of Bulgarian science, miracle of plastics nutrition, here’s Punch ‘n’ Munch, the only professional-quality volleyball that cooks up into a tasty jumbo marshmallow when it comes sundown and time for that big beach cookout!

* Let’s go surfing the Internet--literally! That’s right, a laptop and a board and you’re computer-guided on the surfing ride of your life! It’s “Malibu Dot-Com,� feeding you up-to-the-second reports on currents, wave height, wind direction and so much more for 50 of the world’s most challenging surfing venues as you twist and turn in the maw of the Big Cahuna! Comes complete with battery-operated, waterproof NoNamo laptop with head-clamps and Ultraquik Info-Scrolling, at no extra charge!

* Turn those agonizing sand fleas from major pest to major cash! Think we’re loco? You haven’t viewed “Fleas Ahoy,� the full-color, 89-minute videocassette that shows you, step-by-step, how to select, train, house and discipline the “rookies� that will--within 30 days--be performing everything from somersaults to precision swimming routines to “A Doll’s House� to amazed full-house audiences, while you’re counting the receipts!

* Love your kids but wish sometimes they’d, well, evaporate when you’re trying to veg out and catch the rays? Just think, hours of blessed freedom from, “We want ice cream,� “I need to go to the bathroom,� “A piranha just bit Suzy!� We’re not talking some baby sitter taking them on a 15-minute walk down the beach. We’re talking Little Coyote of Tijuana, northern Mexico and Southern California’s foremost and only snatch-and-run baby-sitting service to use air-conditioned minivans with TV and snack bars. Little Coyote grabs your tykes so fast and so smoothly that you won’t even know they’re missing, and holds them till you beep the all-clear. No muss, no fuss, no complicated car pooling. All the treats they want, all the TV they crave, educational high-speed Mystery Tours--and then safely home again to bed, after vomiting up their “party bags!�*