Why is this magazine still in print?
Reader’s Digest, August 2018
When I was in high school our teacher, Miss Zaph, gave us copies of the Reader’s Digest each month, and we
had to place an x mark on the stories she wanted us to read. I can’t say that I enjoyed the Digest even then, and I am not sure why she had thought that they were educational.
Miss Zaph was a strange lady. She wore a hearing aid and used to turn it off at times, and during these times the class would get rowdy. Maybe that wasn’t so strange after all. I also remember how we all once laughed when we heard an ambulance pass by. She scolded the class, giving us a lecture on compassion. We never laughed again.
My mother loved the Reader’s Digest too, and when I was married she once sent me a year’s subscription. It made for a good bathroom read when it came to the jokes in it. Only the jokes were never that great, and as I found out, because I just purchased a year’s subscription on my kindle for only $5 a year, they are still terrible.
I mostly remember the stories where people survived bear attacks. This is the reason why I am frightened of bears to this very day. This is why I didn’t want to go to Yellowstone a few years back. This is why when I was married to my first husband and we had taken a trip to Yosemite and had to sleep in our car, I did not want to get out at night to use the bathroom. I did anyway. I rushed out of the car, squatted, and ran to get back inside.
What bothers me most about the Digest is that their stories are all condensed, and they are obviously edited by the same person as the style never changes. For example, If you read a Hemmingway book it will sound like Little Women.
The Reader’s Digest Condensed books given to our library each year, so someone likes them, but we can never sell them at our yearly book sale, which tells you that we Okies are not all stupid. Instead the books always find their way to the city dump. One year my friend Toni was making boxes out of old Reader Digest covers. She even made me one. I gathered up all the old cloth covered Digests and brought them to her, and she tore out all the pages leaving just the cover. I tried to make some, but with my eye site they were a mess, which is also why some of my reviews are a mess. My husband took a try at it because he saw what a mess I was making. The Crazy Glue made a mess out of his too, just a small one. I kept it because he made it.
What made me think of getting the Digest? Well, it had been on my mind for some reason. I see them at the checkout stand at the grocery store, and they are expensive for what they are. I had also read an article saying that our president had an IQ of 90 or so because he only uses a vocabulary of 700 words. Someone took note. I doubt if my own is any better, but I know that there are many words that I never use. I know this because I see them when I am reading. I imagine that he doesn’t use all the words that he knows either, but I don’t doubt that his IQ is low, that is, if a master manipulator can have a low IQ. So I took their vocabulary test and got a low score. I imagine I would have been devastated if I didn’t know what my IQ was. Unlike our president, I am no genius. Note: And neither is he. I just was never interested in building my vocabulary, not even when reading the vocabulary list in the Digest. One year I bought a book for college students, and I knew many of the words, but all I learned was the word “replete.” The other unknown words were just not that interesting. The other day when I read the Digest I learned the word “patty pan,” as it was the only interesting word in their list. It is another word for summer squash. Why would anyone need to know that word? Who even uses it? I wonder if my grocer would even know what it is. If I remember I will ask him if they have any patty pan, and he will probably tell me that they don’t carry medical supplies. Update: I asked the produce man if he had any pattypan. He didn't know what I was talking about..
Here is a list of other names:
pattypan squash is also known as scallop squash, peter pan squash, sunburst squash, granny squash, custard marrow, custard squash, and ciblème in Cajun French