Bigger IS Better...

Grandpa is getting on in years, and nowadays, he's getting a bit senile at times. It's bad enough that he tries to flirt with young cashiers down at the SuperMart, but now he's refusing to go to the optometrist for some updates specs.

"My eyes are just fine," he tells us, as he blows a kiss to Bruce, the new long-haired gay punk cashier, who Grandpa evidently can't even distinguish from the young females. When Bruce giggles and waves back to Grandpa, I figure its high time to do something. I could force him at gunpoint to go to the eye doc, but his eyes are so bad he probably wouldn't even recognize the gun, and besides, he'd probably throw a fit and give me a lousy Christmas gift.

Instead, I think I'll just buy him the Large Print edition of Readers Digest.


NOW WITH 30% LARGER PRINT!
It's the same old Readers Digest content. Just BIGGER!

The cover is bigger, the pages are bigger, the whole format is bigger, and of course...the type is set bigger. The magazine looks a little different than your standard supermarket rack 5x9 pocket-sized magazine, but the articles are just as heartwarming as ever!

And who doesn't love Readers Digest?

I mean, really! We all know that the content is basically a bunch of lightweight drivel, but we can't help but love it anyway. We all know it is outdated conservatism at its Wally and Beaver best, but we can't help but keep a warm spot in our library for it.

Do I need to tell you what's in any Readers Digest edition? Do I?


NOTHING HEAVY, NOTHING DEEP...
Well, if I do need to tell you what to expect in the large-print edition of Readers Digest, I'll tell you that its the same old, same old. Like the regular magazine, the large-print version is a predictable mix of heartwarming, non-controversial stories of totally apolitical everyday people overcoming adversity through warmhearted diligence, strength, truth, justice, and the American way.

Of course there will be an article about personal finance, one or two about personal health, one or two about personal self-improvement through education or better garage sales, and most likely at least one true life story about how a dog saved a little boy who was about to be eaten by a crocodile.

I know, I know, y'all think I'm being flippant here, but I swear, when it comes to Readers Digest, true issues are stranger than lampoon. Let's check out Grandpa's issue and see what we've got.....hey, look! Here we have a controversial article about "Odd Jobs" in which we discover that somebody is actually paid to don a mermaid suit and swim in the tanks at an aquarium restaurant. Pretty darn heart-warming, I'd say!

Hey! Check this out! Genuine, real-life call-out quote from one of the controversial cutting-edge articles: "Rearing a baby chimp taught my wife and me some basic lessons of parenthood." I SWEAR I did not make that one up!!!

Besides the plethora of heartwarming tales of life in these American states, you'll find the regular assortment of heartwarming monthly departments, filled with heartwarmingly tasteful jokes and anecdotes, be it "Humor in Uniform" or "Laughter, the Best Medicine". Now if only they would have "Uproariously Funny Jokes About Blacks, Jews, Gays, Women, the Handicapped, and Basically Everyone Other Than White, Protestant, Straight Males, Who We All Know Are Just NOT That Funny."

Hey! Me and Rush Limbaugh would laugh...(just as long as there's no jokes about stupid fat people, otherwise Rush will stop laughing too).

About the only thing that's not in big print are the ads for prescription drugs. Can't have all those old timers figuring out that all those drugs they don't really need have all kinds of side effects, can we? Of course not! That might be downright responsible, and responsibility sure ain't no heartwarming American corporate value! I do believe that ads for drugs nobody really needs now account for almost half the heft of a typical Readers Digest issue. Vioxx, Viagra, Valium, you name the V (or Z or X), and there's an ad for it. Side effects may include drained bank accounts, over-billing prescription drug plans, and very large graft payments to doctors and politicians.

There are a lot of benefits to reading Readers Digest though. We can Enrich Our Word Power. We can have Warmed Hearts. And of course, there are plenty of useful money-saving tips.

One recent article told me five ways to cut down on my fuel costs. One of them was to combine a lot of small trips into one large trip. I thought this was a great idea, so I skipped going to the post office to mail my mortgage payment, I skipped taking my kid to the doctor, and I skipped buying dog food for Fido, and instead, I blew out of town to New Orleans for a weekend of drinking and debauchery on Bourbon Street. I don't know if this really saved any fuel or not, but it sure was a great idea!


BOTTOM LINE
If you can read the dinky little type of this review without setting your browser's default type size to about 80 gazillion points, then skip the large-print edition and just go for the regular Readers Digest. On the other hand, if you do have a blind-as-a-bat age-impaired individual in the house who refuses to go get upgraded specs, well, you could just snag him a large-print edition of Readers Digest. After all, "bigger is better"...