Best. Night. Ever.

Okay. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that 1) I am a wee bit buzzed right now, and 2) I'm typing on a STUPID laptop with a STUPID trackpad that makes the cursor jump like crazy unless I type with my wrists up like a concert pianist (thank you, Sony Vaio), and 3) the two don't make a good typo-free combo. Apologies in advance.

So, down to business. It's Valentine's day, and it turns out that I married the most romantic guy ever. Yup. Way more romantic than me. I can never hope to match him in planning and sheer awesomeness for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

Sean travels a lot for work. This last week he was in Denver, so when he asked me to get the day off and meet him at an undisclosed location, I assumed I'd fly into Denver and spend the weekend.

Well, two hours before I boarded my flight, he sent me my boarding passes via email...and it was Colorado Springs. And not only was it Colorado Springs, but we were staying at the Broadmoor. Think the Ritz or the Four Seasons, except not a hotel chain. It's crazy... it's kind of like Cheers... everyone knows your name--because they're paid to know it.

We had a bit of drama getting here. A flat tire on the way from the airport, a bit of a fender-bender in the rental car, but what is a bit of drama in the face of a kick-ass weekend?

It was supposed to be an awesome weekend weather-wise, but today dawned super foggy and chilly, in spite of the weather man's prediction of sunny and 50s. Regardless, we did some shopping and dining and walking and talking, and then made our way back to the Broadmoor for a swank dinner.

Sean and I have gone super paleo for the last month and half, which apparently results in quasi-virgin taste buds--without artificial sweetener, everything tastes sweeter. Without processed foods full of sodium, everything tastes saltier.  Dinner was incredible.... except for the excessive (and I do mean excessive) salt. And ironically, our waiter said that the chef should know better, considering that he went paleo for 9 months or so himself.

But once more, I digress. I tend to do that in these blogs... digression is a fact of life, I guess.

After dinner we high-tailed it to the jacuzzi before it closed at 9 PM (9 PM?? Seriously??) and made chummy with a couple of guys up from Louisiana (a classically-trained musician and a lawyer) before deciding to head out to the Golden Bee, an English Pub on the Broadmoor grounds.

The Golden Bee is incredibly authentic in terms of English Pub-ness. The woodwork, the wall paper, the beers on tap... all of them spoke to the spirit of the UK. They have custom embroidered super-sticky bee stickers that they throw at all the patrons to stick on their shirts--a very cool and often hilarious gimmick And most awesome of all, they have sing-a-longs and pass out lyric books so you can follow along. A guy plays the piano and takes requests--either from the book or otherwise--and the crowd sings along.

Now, you can guess that the crowd may not be all that involved in a sing-along night, and I'm sure that often you'd be right. However, tonight the Broadmoor hosted the Air Force Ball, and the pub was full of post-ball military people ready to have a good time... and raucous fun ensued. Singing along with 100 strangers to the Beatles and Tom Petty and traditional Irish Pub songs never felt so good--not even the drunk woman who came up to me and told me I was gorgeous while getting WAY too touchy-feely could dampen my mood...but let's be honest--does anyone ever NOT want to hear that someone thinks they're gorgeous??

And in the corner, the TVs were playing the Olympics, which tonight featured men's figure skating. If there's anywhere in the US that's a good place to be watching men's figure skating in a bar, it's Colorado Springs--headquarters of the US Olympic Committee and home of the Olympic skating training facilities and the Figure Skating Hall of Fame.

During one performance, the bartender stopped in front of us and asked if we had seen it yet. It turns out his girlfriend is in sports medicine at the Olympic training center and knows most of the skaters, so he regaled us with the back story of the young 19-year-old skater from Colorado and watched the replays with us--as I imagine a bar tender would anywhere else with a crazy football play. Only in Colorado Springs could a macho bar tender rehashing the intricacies of a men's long program in figure skating seem commonplace.

We made friends with the piano man (he actually did a GREAT rendition of Billy Joel) by virtue of talking to him and buying him a beer, and as a result all of our requests jumped the queue. After a few cocktails, some Bon Jovi, Elton John, and Journey--and an increasingly inebriated and raucous Air Force population--we decided to call it a night...but not before the bartenders, the pianist, and a couple of the Air Force personnel (including the guy who looked like Patrick Stewart) waved goodbye as we walked out the door.

Best. Night. Ever.

Dear Bed Bath & Beyond

Dear Bed Bath & Beyond:

First of all, let's agree that for the rest of this letter I can refer to you as BB&B. Saying Bed Bath & Beyond each time is too much of a mouthful. And we won't even get into the fact that you really ought to have a comma after Bed (and after Bath, too, but there are always some detractors who argue the cause for NOT having a comma before "and." Poor, misguided souls).

Anyway, I digress. I like your store. A whole lot. I always end up spending way too much money when we visit and adding a whole bunch of organizational doo-dads to my "next time" list. I also like the fact that you always send out 20% off coupons. I DON'T like all the restrictions in the fine print, but that's neither here nor there.

I signed up for mobile coupon alerts to be texted to me. We will ignore the fact that I tried to sign up four different times over a period of 6 months to get email coupons, and it never worked. And no, they didn't go into my junk folder. So I gave up and signed up for the texts, which worked like a charm.

Now I get coupon texts from you pretty regularly. BB&B, please, please, PLEASE tell me why you are choosing to contribute to the massacre of the English language by using "text speak" in your coupon offers. Why?

Your offers say, "BedBath&Beyond: Ur mobile offer for 20% off 1 item in-store OR online is here!  View http://blahblahblah. Reply STOP to cancel."

After I get done shivering in revulsion at the use of "Ur," this CHEESES me.  Every. Stinkin'. Time.

The English language is suffering through an alarmingly rapid degradation without you contributing further to the slaughter. You can't tell me it's a cost thing.... You're not paying by the number of characters in your text. Even if you were, two extra wouldn't break the bank. And you're not trying to shorten or truncate any of the rest of it into cutesy text lingo. And we know these messages are not actually coming from the phone of a BB&B employee. We KNOW that someone sat in front of a computer to type these messages, which makes it even more inexcusable. I mean, you have proper usage throughout the rest of it. You even say "in-store" instead of "in store." You obviously understand the intricacies of this complicated dance we language enthusiasts call grammar.

My 16-year-old little brother-in-law has started saying "NP," and "IDK," and "LOL" in face-to-face conversation instead of "no problem," "I don't know," or, you know, actually laughing out loud.  For crying out loud, people. Are we really so lazy that taking the time to say those extra syllables is actually too difficult of a task? I'm all for the natural evolution of language, but not for full-scale lingualcide.

And what happens when a major corporation like BB&B with a crazy amount of resources, extreme public visibility, and a highly educated corporate staff starts using this ridiculous texty lingo when it's unnecessary to do so? The indoctrination of our youth--our precious youth!--deepens.

For shame, I say! It's up to people like us to save the English language... As someone famous and smart once said, "The only way for cutesy text lingo to succeed is for grammar-centric people to stand by and do nothing." Or something like that.

Well, I refuse to stand by and do nothing. I'm calling you on the carpet, BB&B.  Let's put in those two extra letters in your coupon offers, and show these up-and-coming generations what "professionalism" means. Only YOU can prevent textual abuse.

Oh, and Pier 1? In case you're listening, my girl asked me to call you out, too. What's up with you being hella expensive these days?

Sincerely and with most respectful regards,
A long-hand texter