philhege,
Get over yourself! If you are allowed to jump in and declare a thread winner, then I am allowed to jump in and declare your declaring invalid.
What I said was completely light-hearted and quite amusing to me.I do at this point believe that you got upset and there was no need for it. Unless you are completely funnin' me with that response (which seemed quite angry), in which case I am fooled hook, line, and sinker. Anyway, sorry about the confusion! No one has drooled, spat, pissed, or otherwise excreted into or contaminated my Cheerios (although I don't believe I actually own any Cheerios at this time).
In my book, arguing about whether the other guy is abiding by the rules is as much light-hearted fun as any other strategy of entertainment-generation.
I often, with my own friends and family, make jokes along these lines. "No, you can't put butter in your mashed potatoes before gravy, because you don't have a pre-gravy butter permit and it's not alternate food deposition order day!" They of course either ignore me, or start arguing. Or make a funny face and then totally ostentatiously do whatever it was they had planned to before I started in on them.
What's off limits in my social circle is making fun of actual mistakes or areas that the person is known to be sensitive about. We all laugh at my brother or me for mispronouncing a word, but we don't laugh at someone else we know for whom English is not a native language.