TV Guide goes big, small time

He’s used to the guide feature on his dish, so he needed the help only a TV Guide could offer. On the way to visit him yesterday, I went hunting for the surprisingly elusive Guide. The story ends in horror.

First, I went into QuikTrip. No luck there. I awkwardly left the convenience store with nothing in hand, after frantically scanning the magazine and newspaper racks like a horny teen searching for a Hustler to shoplift.

Rather than try other convenience stores with misspelled names, I headed into Hy-Vee. I went to the magazine section of the store, and struck out once more.

Cursing my stupidity for not looking for the TV Guide in its natural habitat in the first place, I walked toward the checkout stands.

I had to look like a madman, my head bobbing up and down each of ten checkout lines’ magazine racks before finally locating the TV Guide. That’s when it struck me: at some point between now and the time people used the TV Guide to find out show times, they made it a full-sized magazine.

I spent the rest of the afternoon asking people if they knew whether TV Guide still made the small version, because this simply made no sense. No one could confirm or deny its existence. A visit to TV Guide’s website shows no small guide option, either.

The small TV Guide was the Reader’s Digest of lazy people. When you had to pull yourself away from the TV to vacate your bowels, there was the TV Guide, with its perfect size for toilet reading and promise of further TV enlightenment.

I decided to do some investigating, by taking my concerns straight to the top. Luckily, TV Guide has a customer service section where you can ask questions.

After entering my message, I clicked the submit button. Look what happened: