Sometimes I wish that I had giant hands, like five or six times the size they are right now. Whenever I tell this to anyone, they always give me a weird look. “Don’t you think it would be kind of freakish?” they might ask. “Wouldn’t it get in the way of living a normal life?” But who really wants a normal life anyway?

Freakish? Maybe. But probably not. I think it would all be determined by how I owned it. If I felt that my giant hands were something to be ashamed of, then I think that those feelings would be translated into how others might perceive me. For example, if I was embarrassed of them, I might walk down the street, my head hung low, trying to hide my hands in my pockets. But my hands would be so big that I’d rip the pockets right out of the pants as soon as I tried to stuff them in there. The only other possibility would be to have a tailor custom make several pairs of pants with giant pockets capable of holding my giant hands. But that would look equally as weird. Without being able to see my hands, passersby might wonder what the hell is going on with those two giant bulges at the sides of my hips. Also, if I ever wanted to take my hands out of the pockets, there would be this huge surplus of fabric hanging down from my sides. It would look crazy.

But like I said, I wouldn’t be ashamed. I would own it. If I were blessed with the giant hands of my wildest dreams, my life would most definitely be a lot better. I wouldn’t be embarrassed at all. I would walk down the street radiating confidence. I’d give out ridiculously oversized high-fives to anybody that thought they could handle one. A giant thumbs-up would be equally as glorious. And if anybody thought about teasing me or giving me a hard time, I think a well-timed foot-long middle finger might send any hecklers the perfect message.

Remember when the first Hulk movie came out and some toy manufacturer released those Hulk-Hands toys? They were so cool. They were giant green fists that you could wear over your hands. Whenever you pounded them together, they made some really cool sound effects. The only problem was, they were so incredibly popular that they all sold out nationwide. I never did get to realize my dream of holding the power of the Hulk in my hands. If I had actual giant hands, I wouldn’t need some stupid toy. I could just dip my hands in some green paint and I’d have real life Hulk-Hands. Everyone would be unbelievably jealous.

I’ll never forget the humiliation I experienced when I got cut from the volleyball team in high school. It’s not like I imagined myself to have any natural volleyball talent. No, I just happened to have a growth spurt early on and was taller than pretty much everybody else at school. The volleyball coach approached me about joining the team, not the other way around. I expressed my hesitation, telling him how I had never so much as ever handled a volleyball before. He assured me that, with my natural height, it would only be a matter of practice and training.

Needless to say, I didn’t make the volleyball team. The coach should have paid attention to the enormity of my self-doubt. But instead, he strung me along through all the rounds of cuts, making me humiliate myself in front of all the other would-be volleyballers as I spasmed and flailed around the court, rarely if ever making decent contact with the ball. Right before he posted the final team roster, he pulled me over and, clearly embarrassed at having ever encouraged me to try out, told me that I wouldn’t be a part of that year’s team. He couldn’t even bring himself to look me in the eye.

I’m almost positive that if I had a giant pair of hands, I would have saved myself two-weeks worth of unnecessary humiliation. I could have been a star blocker. What I lacked in physical ability and hand-eye coordination I would have more than made up for in sheer hand-size. All I would have had to do was to reach up. There would have been probably close to an eighty percent chance that I would have made at least some sort of contact with the ball. Whenever I think back to those unfortunate tryouts, I always find myself staring at my pathetic, regular sized hands, thinking about how they always let me down, how they’ll never reach the gigantic size that I’ve desperately fantasized about in my imagination.