You had it coming, buddy.

Today's most gratifying piece of frivolous news had to be three year-old who, after being handed a freshly caught fowl ball at a Phillies game by her overzealous father, promptly threw it back into the field.

Not only do I laugh out loud every time I am revisited by this image, but I find it to be such hysterical karmic retribution for what I consider to be two of the most irritating human conditions: 1. The assumption that any instance of good fortune at least momentarily eclipses any need for human logic; and 2. Everyone's dumb preoccupation with their own children. I mean, come on, you're willing to sacrifice owning a tangible piece of sports history* for one solitary gesture that you likely deem as 'cute', even though your concept of cuteness has become so dangerously skewed by the affliction of early parenthood.

*Note: The magnitude of this description varies depending on what kind of baseball fan you are, I suppose, but I do not take the catching of a fowl ball lightly under any circumstances.

I harbor no real resentment toward parents or children or the dangerous combination of the two (two which you are likely responding, "Are you SURE about that?") I just find it truly, insanely hysterical that people who have children allow themselves to, on a REGULAR basis, be reduced to the same level of intellect as their spawn.

And will there come a day when my words prove hypocritical, and the sight of my own child's glowing smile is enough to reduce me to a pile of babbling mush? Maybe. But I'd like to think that I'd have the presence of mind to raise to kind of children who understand the sacred institution of Major League Baseball and who would behave accordingly.