Perhaps the biggest mystery of the Oscar telecast — aside from why we sit through five hours of it — is the issue of “loser’s” gift bags.

On the day after this year’s telecast, the nominees who didn’t win an Oscar reportedly received gift bags worth an estimated $45,000 to compensate for their brutal disappointment.

According to abcnews.go, this year’s swag included: a trip to Australia valued at $12,000, a face lift ($5,000), a stay at a Mexican resort ($3,000), a membership to Heathrow Airport’s private VIP service ($1,800), personal training sessions ($850), acupuncture ($600) and circus lessons for the nominee’s children ($400).

The total for all that only comes to $23,690, leaving $21,310 unaccounted for. But the report also mentioned that the gift bags included condoms and Windex. I’m not sure if “Amour” actress 86-year-old Emmanuelle Riva has a need for condoms, although, if she does, I salute her. And the next time Jessica Chastain climbs a ladder to clean windows the knowledge that she has plenty of Windex on hand should come as a consolation.

I’m not bothered by people receiving consolation prizes. Losing an Oscar certainly is one of life’s unspeakable tragedies, and one would need to have a heart of stone not to sympathize with the anguish those people are enduring in their Beverly Hills homes.

What does puzzle me is the whole filthy-rich getting filthy-richer thing. I’m pretty sure that Steven Spielberg — loser though he may be — can afford to buy his own circus lessons. (Not that all Hollywood stars are well-heeled; some of the starlets on the red carpet had to borrow the jewelry they were wearing from a guy named Harry Winston).

And the movie industry didn’t invent the concept of bestowing more wealth upon the wealthy.

Highly paid executives who have guided corporations into bankruptcy receive multimillion dollar golden parachutes, even though common decency suggests that money should be divided amongst the working stiffs who have been rendered unemployed.

The most valuable player in baseball’s World Series and football’s Super Bowl receive new cars, even though many of them already earn enough in salaries to make a hefty down payment on the purchase of General Motors. Following the 2011 baseball season, the World Series MVP received a new Corvette. But in his case that made sense, because his salary that year was only $416,000.

Still, $45,000 of stuff for not winning something seems a little excessive.

But maybe I’m just jealous. I’ve been losing writing competitions for years, with nothing to show for it. This May, according to industry predictions, will be the 36th consecutive year I will not win the Pulitzer Prize.

That should be worth at least a bottle of Windex.