TV Guide

For those of you who didn’t know me as a child let me give you a little background on me. I grew up in a very small town in Alabama and that’s pretty much all that you need to know about this post. Don’t get me wrong, I love Alabama. Had some of the best times of my life in Alabama and some of the greatest people in my life are either in or from Alabama. But this particular post falls right in line with the stereotype.

So I grew up in a middle class neighborhood in a small town as I mentioned. And on the surface everything was pretty normal. But peel away a layer or two and the quirkiness of some of the people in the neighborhood starts to shine through.

You see there was this one family in our neighborhood that collected something unique, TV Guides.

I remember as a kid this family had a bookcase in their hallway that was just filled with TV Guides, years and years worth of TV Guides as a matter of fact. I remember asking my friend who lived there over and over again what was up with all of the TV Guides. No other publications, just TV Guides. And over and over again I would get some brush off answer about how his dad thought that they might be worth a lot of money one day or some other lame excuse.

And then one day a second bookcase showed up in the hallway. And week by week it slowly began to fill up with more TV Guides. One day I was hanging out and started to thumb through them. And there was nothing special about them. Nothing was hidden in them, the crossword puzzle wasn’t even started, nothing.

Then one day there was a police chase that came through our neighborhood where the guy who was running from the cops lost control of his motorcycle and crashed into the family’s car, catching it and then their house on fire. It was horrible, every issue burned.

The mystery of the TV Guides will remain unanswered for ever now. After a couple of months the house was rebuilt and for some reason the TV Guide bookcase was nowhere to be found. Of course I had to ask about them and of course I got a brush off answer, this time with attitude.

Then one day a couple of months later, a bookcase appeared in the hallway again. And placed on it was this cute little pair of TV Guides. YES!!!! Glorious TV Guides! Now I have something to bug my friend about.

At this point I couldn’t have cared less about the damn magazines or why they were keeping them, I just liked to bust their chops about them. So I go up to my friend and say that I see that the TV Guides are back and ask him what’s up with that.

If you are eating or drinking anything, you might want to go ahead and swallow it before you continue reading. It’s ok, I’ll wait.

So my friend says to me in a huff, and I quote, “My dad is keeping them because he thinks that toilet paper is going to go out of style. And when they quit making it we are going to wipe our butts with the pages of TV Guide.”

I shit you not, pun intended

- Don’t get dead