Exactly What I Won:

I have been awarded one billion lime-flavored marshmallows, paid to me in one lump sum, packaged in a giant plastic replica of Timothy Hutton and Lauren Hutton in an embrace that is sexual but non-incestuous because they are not related, and dropped into my backyard from a cargo plane. In addition, buried somewhere in the one-thousand-million lime-flavored marshmallows there is a key. The key, if I ever find it, goes to a moped that will be delivered to me when I call the phone number that is written on the key. It could be years before I ever see my moped.

How It Happened:

Approximately one year ago, it came to my attention that a new television game show had taken to the airwaves. This game show was called One Billion Somethings and it invited contestants to compete against each other by identifying non-food items while wearing earplugs and blindfolds, using only their senses of taste and smell. The grand prize winner was awarded one billion identical prizes with a single moped key buried within. The identical prizes were determined by the producers before the show and delivered to the contestant in something beautiful.

For example, the first time I saw the show, a young lady correctly identified a saddle once worn by Sea Biscuit and found herself the proud owner of one billion Alf pencil erasers, dropped on her doorstep in a papier-mâché replica of the original cast of In Living Color. On another show, a man won one billion night crawlers by guessing that he'd just licked a bar napkin from the T.G.I. Fridays in Punta Gorda, Florida. His worms were brought to him in a great big rollerblade. The prize was always something different and it was always something amazing.

It was clear to me that this show was my destiny for two reasons. The first reason being that after a 1992 jumping jack accident, I was temporarily rendered blind, deaf and paralyzed from the bottom-of-my-tongue down. The time I spent disabled was the longest and hardest eleven weeks of my life. My tongue and nose became my eyes, ears and touch-receptors in addition to remaining my tongue and nose.

Lucky for me, after being kicked in the head by a frightened deer, I regained all of my senses and abilities. Unlucky for my opponents on One Billion Somethings, I never lost the razor sharp smelling and tasting skills that I meticulously honed during my brief period of handicappedness.

I found out when the next contestant search was to be held and I showed up bright and early. Much to my surprise, a tremendous line had already formed around the studio. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention, so I took my spot at the end of the line and began sleeping my way to the front.

Once inside the recruitment center, I wowed the producers by telling them the make, model and year of the car they drove there in, just by smelling and licking their foreheads. They were like putty in my nose and mouth and in no time, I'd won myself a spot on the show.