kartooner

In the clas­sic Lucasarts com­puter game, Sam and Max Hit the Road, one of the loca­tions you visit is the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, a land­mark of epic pro­por­tions main­tained by a teleken­tic repair man with Tourette’s syn­drome. Like I said, clas­sic game.

These kinds of tourist traps dot land­scapes all over the world and for good rea­son. I’ve seen every­thing from the World’s Largest Ther­mome­ter in Illi­nois, which stood 750-feet high, to the World’s Small­est Cac­tus in Ari­zona, mea­sur­ing about two inches in height. The cura­tors of these “fan­tas­tic sights” are always, and I repeat always overly estac­tic, point­ing out fea­tures of these land­marks with a sprin­kle of fas­ci­na­tion and won­der­ment in their voices.

I’ve often won­dered if some of these indi­vid­u­als have ever expe­ri­enced the world out­side of their home­towns or local tourist attrac­tions. Granted, it’s some­what impres­sive to see the World’s Largest Donut, but I think it’s much more majes­tic stand­ing before the Great Wall of China or The Great Pyra­mid of Giza. Some­thing I hope to expe­ri­ence some day, when the finan­cial gods allow such an excursion.

When you think about it, in your life­time you’ll never be able to read every novel or watch every film cre­ated. Like­wise, you’ll only hear cer­tain sounds, breath in var­i­ous smells, expe­ri­ence cer­tain tastes and sights and most impor­tant of all, touch cer­tain things, be they inan­i­mate objects, loved ones or some­thing as sim­ple as an Oak table.