How impoverished my life seems, how hollow, when I consider that I've never attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring a pair of novelty oversized scissors, nor have I ever won a contest or sweepstakes and been ceremoniously presented a novelty oversized check. I could go on, but the point is that I have precious few experiences with comically enormous everyday objects. I've never worn a "we're #1" giant foam hand at a ball game. How can I say I've lived?

I'm not saying these experiences would be anything short of mortifying, especially the check one. Suppose I won the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes and became the subject of one of those kitschy scenes made famous on the commercials. The hand-held camera approaches the door of someone's home, a hand appears from the side and knocks, and the startled occupant is presented with a giant check as he adjusts the belt of his brown plaid bathrobe. If it's a woman, a homely stout child half-hides behind her. Frankly I'm not sure I'd sign the release to allow my face to be shown on such a commercial. It wouldn't even be worth the prize to be implicated in such a shabby bit of Americana. Video of such an event would be a static shot of a closed door, the microphone-wielding presenter beseeching me to emerge, with my reedy voice from within saying "just slip the giant check under the door and go away."

I've always wondered what kind of filthiness and perversion was taking place behind those doors just before the camera crew arrived. This is America after all. We like our checks gigantic, our depravities private, and our hypocrisies unchallenged. There ought to be a secret reel somewhere, those exact same scenes but from inside the houses. Just before the doorbell rings we see the man beating his wife or fast-forwarding through the boring preliminary parts of a porno tape featuring pubescent boys entitled "Mall Trash."