Reader's Digest: Good for Something

My in-laws subscribe to Reader's Digest, which I always read cover-to-cover when I'm here.

Okay, I read the jokes and the blurbs in between the articles. You can't read the articles themselves, because they tend to be inspirational stories of how somebody overcame all the odds to beat a life-threatening disease or got rescued against all the odds from an armed assailant in a convenience store or saved 17 children against all odds from an overturned schoolbus or bravely survived being buried by an avalanche in a cabin in the mountains, against all odds. Or, I mean, you could read those; but why? One is really enough.

Perhaps too much.

They also have well-known urban legends sent in as true by their readers, shallow profiles of second-tier celebrities, screamingly obvious self-improvement tips, Top Ten Things To Get Your Panties in a Wad About This Month, and plenty of amusingly indignant letters in the Letters To the Editor section. (For some reason, Reader's Digest readers are frequently indignant - and one suspects the editorial staff has more than its fair share of spelling corrections to make.) But the only parts really worth reading are the jokes, one in every seventeen of which may elicit a slight chuckle. Here's one that made me laugh and think of Tony, with some minor tweaking:

Four women are taking a cross-country road trip, each from a different state: Texas, Idaho, Indiana, and California. Soon after starting out, the woman from Idaho pulls a bag of potatoes out of her suitcase and tosses them out the window.

"What on earth are you doing?" asks the Indianan.

"We have so many potatoes in Idaho, I'm tired of looking at them!"

The Indianan, inspired, pulls several ears of corn out of her bag and tosses them out the window, as the Texan looks on in amazement. "Indiana is full of corn," she explains, "and I'm sick of the stuff!"

The Texan shrugs, opens up the car door and boots out the Californian.