Is your life diminished because your basement is unfinished?

I'm obsessed with that opening line from a local TV commercial.

The commercial opens with a sweep around a dreary unfinished basement. There are the concrete floors, discarded toys and the ubiquitous unused exercise machine. We see the family, poor drudges, going about their daily diminished lives. Then, in an instant, the basement is transformed. There's a widescreen TV, several couches, a carpet and a smiling mom, dad and kid. It's amazing!

So I've gotta think that if these folks felt their lives were diminished because their basement was unfinished, what of all us poor saps who don't even have basements? Can we even be said to be living?

I think that's a fair topic for the next Democratic debate.