*I have never understood why the "front room" was called the "front room" as it is actually located at the very back of the house.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The "Old Lady Paper" Revisited
I cancelled my newspaper subscription yesterday. As you might recall (but probably not), I've written here before that one of my main reasons for subscribing in the first place was to get the weekly tv schedule. Daniel thinks it's funny that I use the printed tv schedule at all and always refers to it as the "old lady paper". I've never quite understood this moniker. Are old women the only ones who want to save time in finding a tv program to watch? Do all young people these days have digital cable and satellite tv, therefor granting them access to on screen programming guides? In any case, I've always thought his depiction of my need for a printed tv guide was unfounded. At least, that's how I felt until last Sunday. That was the day I happened to be at my grandma's house for a family event. I was sitting in the living room when grandma came walking out of the front room* carrying the tv schedule. There is no tv in the front room, so I wondered why she'd bothered to take the schedule back there in the first place. As it turns out, she'd taken it back there because that's where her sewing machine is. What is the connection, you might ask? Well, before I tell you, let me remind you that the newspaper changed the format of the tv paper a while back and it no longer comes stapled together. This adds the weekly annoyance of me having to staple it together myself, which is a small inconvience, but an inconvienence none the less. As it turns out, my grandmother finds this lack of staples equally annoying, so each week, she goes to her sewing machine, and sews a line down the middle of the tv schedule. When I found this out, I enjoyed a moment of blissful validation in knowing that I was not alone in my distaste for what the newspaper was putting me through. However, this moment was quickly followed by the realization that I was sharing this moment with my 90 year old grandmother, which means that perhaps Daniel isn't completely unfounded in his characterization of my printed tv schedule.
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2 comments:
No on screen programming guide for me either. I get my HDTV over bunny ears, which feels atavistic in some way.
It's always a disconcerting feeling when one of my magazine subscriptions switches from glue to staples. I take it as a 12-month notice of cancellation. But yes, when the only thing holding a publication together is friction, that is truly frustrating.
Whenever the newspaper does a format change I know a few dependable laughs can be had in that week's Cheers and Jeers section as it is flooded by old people complaining about how the comic strips keep getting smaller and that the new headline font is cheap and another sign of the downfall of western civilization.
I don't know how we get HDTV. Somehow those channels just magically appeared when we got an HD tv. I think they come over the cable? I think I might have traded in some magic beans or something.
You're right about the firestorm of complaints over any seemingly small change to the newspaper. There was one round of letters when the tv guide was changed, then another one when the crossword was tampered with. The complaints came in waves which loosely followed this schedule:
Week 1 of complaints:
I can't believe you did ________ to the ________ section of the paper. This is grounds for cancellation!
Week 2 of complaints:
People who bother to write letters to the paper complaining that people have nothing better to do than write letters to the paper.
Week 3 of complaints:
Can't we all just get along?
Week 4 of complaints:
No!
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