Stupid parents

Today was a snow day. School was cancelled and my husband even came home early from the shop (an extremely rare occurence). The whole city is like a ghost town. I have a five foot snow drift in front of my garage. I won't be going anywhere until one of the following happens: A) the snow melts, B) some kind soul comes to offer his snowblowing services (which sounds awfully dirty if you ask me), or C) we buy our own snowblower.

None of these things is likely to happen anytime soon.

Just for shits and giggles, I called around to a few places to see if they actually had any snowblowers, or snowthrowers as I just found out they are sometimes called, left. Snowthrower makes a hell of a lot more sense than snowblower. Think about it.

Of course every place I called was clean out, but no one laughed at me for asking so that was nice.

We spent the day lounging and eating too much as I am want to do during blizzard conditions (like I need an excuse). It was just a casual, relaxing day.

I considered getting us all bundled up to play outside, but the winds were whipping something fierce. It was kind of scary out there if you want to know the truth (and I know you do). We had to actually force my dogs to go outside to do their "bidness". They're Pugs though, not a breed known for its hardiness or bravery in treacherous conditions.

The 40mph gusts did not stop my neighbors' kids from playing outside. My husband spotted a couple of them across the street frolicking sans gloves. C'mon people!

Granted, they don't appear to be the smartest family on the planet, but I would think a little common sense would seep in somewhere between WWE Saturday Night and NASCAR marathons.

It's cold and windy and fucking ass COLD! Make sure your kids wear gloves and hey, maybe a hat, when it's this cold outside.

A second example of parental asshattery came in the form of a Sprout short. In between shows, they do this, for lack of a better term, birthday shout out. Parents can send in homemade cards and the host reads them on air. It's cute and all, but kind of obnoxious especially when they play this thinly-disguised version of "Happy Birthday" (sung by Elmo himself!). It's terrible and it has a way of sticking in my head for days on end.

The cards though, they are heartwarming in an 'old episode of Little House on the Prairie' kind of way. Some day I will get it together enough to send one in that is so amazingly sickeningly syrupy in nature, they won't be able to stop themselves from showing it. I can't do it for one kid and not the other, so I'll probably just make it for myself. Won't I feel special?

Today, one of the cards they read was for a two year old. I don't remember where he's from or even what his name was, but I do know this: his parents should be ashamed of themselves right now.

On the front of the adorably decorated birthday card were intricate cut outs and little drawings of birthday candles. It appeared that someone took a lot of time putting it together. The inside was a picture of the cute-as-a-button birthday boy. Awwww. Then Host Guy closed the card and showed the front of it to camera again. That's when I saw it (and saw it three more times thanks to my DVR capabilities).

"YOUR 2!!"

I'm assuming they get hundreds, if not thousands of these handmade birthday cards every week, and they pick one with a spelling error?

Don't the higher-ups at Sprout (a subsidiary of PBS forchrissakes!!) that grammar and spelling nerds like myself are writhing in pain over this? What the fuck people?

OK, I know I have been known to screw up a little grammar here and there. I also know that I use commas out the wazoo, but at least I'm trying. I'm all about spell check and if I think I might be using a word or phrase wrong (see above: "...want to do..."), you bet your ass I'm googling or thesaurus.com-ing it.

"Your 2".

No. Just no.