"What, what, what ... what?!"

Before I went home to the States a month ago, my mother warned me about these guys:

"They're all over the place," she said. And, sure enough, in CVS, in Walgreens, in every supermarket I wandered into, there they were, dominating the card section. You always know when somebody's looking at a card with their likenesses on it because you can hear their dialogue from five aisles away.
I'd never heard of them. (You'd have to give them Limey accents and dress them in soccer jerseys or place them in a series of compromising sexual positions for them to break ground over here in the U.K.) I suppose she warned me partly because I recently received a Hoops & Yo-Yo card for my 41st birthday.
You know, I blame Ren & Stimpy for them. You can't look at them—or hear them—and not think of that '90s cartoon. I always thought Ren & Stimpy were annoying. So are H & Y. Big-time.
But, as awful as they are, they also make make me laugh. With our precious hold on sanity getting tougher to maintain every day in this putrid social atmosphere, with its many hypocrises, and the horrible economic climate, silly stuff like this is a breath of fresh air. I don't know, I just got into perusing every one I could find.
Greeting cards have always been a refuge of sorts for silly humor, but the Hoops & Yo-Yo cards are in a league of their own. They may be irritating and they may be everywhere.
But I hope they stick around for a while.