Snubbed.

We've all experienced it. During our time on this big blue marble, we've suffered the blows of being rebuffed and rebuked, rejected and repelled.

We've been told to sod off, to take a long walk off a short pier, to shut up, pipe down and go away.

And it sucks. It sucks to be dismissed and devalued, because it doesn't take long before we begin believing those who marginalize us. Yeah, maybe my true station in life is perched right on the knobby area of society's cold shoulder; perhaps it's time to stop running this fool's errand of contrived self esteem.

Okay, maybe I'm a little sensie-poo regarding this topic, because, as I've mentioned at least eighty times, I was a fat kid.

Young boys, when playing young boy games, tend to place a premium on athletic ability and a discount on wit and intellect. The slow, small and corpulent are the chaff of the playground; they're the club who familiarly stand elbow to elbow along a chalky line of shame after all the others have been drafted ahead of them for the recess soccer game.

"Go ahead. You can have the rest of them," one captain would often announce to his counterpart as we remainders silently lamented our status. I vividly recall feeling like one of the sinners in the "Left Behind" series, only the reason I stayed on Earth was God's inability to heft a body mass index of thirty-five or above into his infinite bosom.

Rejection assumes a confusing tint when we're not sure why we've been snubbed. During college, I wondered why girls sometimes didn't want to dance with me. Come on, all I was requesting was a three minute conference between her, Spandau Ballet and me.

"Oh, sorry, I need to find my friend," was the most common smackdown, but occasionally I'd get, "Oh my God. Dinner's almost over back at the sorority and I've got bathroom duty this week and I've got to get back in time to hold hair. Sorry!"

And now it's time for my carefully-orchestrated, totally lame segue, combining clueless sorority behavior with bald-faced rejection.

I couldn't help but feel for our old friend, Sarah Palin, this past week, when, in a nearly six-hundred-word diatribe posted to her Facebook page, Palin challenged President Obama to a debate "anywhere, anytime"  to discuss "the issues Americans are actually concerned about," including "an anti-drilling agenda that rejects good paying energy sector jobs and makes us more dependent on dangerous foreign regimes."

Shouldn't this woman, who came within a mere three-and-a-quarter-million votes and a frozen Hades of the vice presidency, be allowed one little debate with our commander-in-chief just to settle the score?

After all, Mrs. Palin humbly requested an opportunity to address the nation on election night, only to be rebuffed in favor of a concession speech delivered by the man whom she carried for all those months, John McCain.

Gracefully bowing out of the political arena to crop dust the field of punditry with her blistering world view, she selflessly extended her reach to a knowledge-thirsty demographic—the reality television audience.

Despite Palin's heroic efforts to team with reality royalty Kate Gosselin, her show was canceled after just one riveting season.

America just wasn't ready.

Now, after all she's been through—the impossible-to-pronounce teleprompter words, the School House Rock Constitutional Crash Course, the endless green room waits while hounded endlessly by Todd and Twig or Twine or whatever that kid's name is—doesn't Sarah Palin deserve an opportunity to spar with the very man she chose not to defeat this November?

Nah.