Me or I: A Grammar Pet Peeve

I hear and see this a lot in daily conversation, on TV, people's blogs, in magazines, newspapers, internet news -- just about everywhere and it drives me nuts! What's even worse is that this is supposed to be so simple; a no-brainer; common sense. Well, it appears common sense is not so common afterall.

The issue: When is it grammatically correct to use "me" instead of "I" and vice versa?

Let's discuss:
Case 1:
"I'm thankful to those who helped my brother and I." - INCORRECT
"I'm thankful to those who helped my brother and me." - CORRECT
Case 2:
"It's been a while since my brother and me visited our parents." - INCORRECT
"It's been a while since my brother and I visited our parents." - CORRECT

Simple tips on how to determine which one you should use:
Tip #1: Put the "I" or "me" before the "my brother" (or "my husband" or "my friend", etc...)
Case 1:
"I'm thankful to those who helped I and my brother." -- doesn't sound so right anymore, does it?
"I'm thankful to those who helped me and my brother." - still correct; sounds correct because it is correct!
Case 2:
"It's been a while since me and my brother visited our parents." -- doesn't sound quite so right anymore, does it?
"It's been a while since I and my brother visited our parents." -- still correct; sounds correct because it is correct!

Tip #2: Simply drop the "my brother" or "my husband" or "my anything" off the statement.
Case 1:
"I'm thankful to those who helped I." -- now it's even more obvious that it's incorrect!
"I'm thankful to those who helped me." - better? Better!
Case 2
"It's been a while since me visited our parents." - now it's even more obvious that it's incorrect!
"It's been a while since I visited our parents." - no doubt now that this is the correct one.

Tip #3: Replacement with "us" and "we". This is a very easy replacement rule to correct the usage of "me" or "I":
RULE 1: [WE = somebody and I]
RULE 2: [US = somebody and me]
Using these replacement rules, you can check the correctness of your usage of "me" or "I"
Case 1:
"I'm thankful to those who helped us." - obviously CORRECT
"I'm thankful to those who helped we." - obviously INCORRECT
so by simple replacement we know that the following are true:
"I'm thankful to those who helped my brother and me." - CORRECT
"I'm thankful to those who helped my brother and I." - INCORRECT
Case 2
"It's been a while since we visited our parents." - CORRECT
"It's been a while since us visited our parents." - INCORRECT
so by simple replacement we know that the following are true:
"It's been a while since my brother and I visited our parents." - CORRECT
"It's been a while since my brother and me visited our parents." - INCORRECT

In closing, here are a few important (common sense) points:
- If it's incorrect when used by itself, then it must not be right when compounded.
- Use "I" if the pronoun is the subject of the sentence.
- Use "me" if used as part of an object in a sentence or if it is implied by an object. An "object" is easy to spot. They always begin with "to", "with", "for", "that", "about", etc...

I was at a gathering a few months back and I overheard a guy saying to a girl, "So, let's talk about you and I...", it took all my strenght not to approach them and correct the guy and tell him that the correct usage is "me" and not "I". If I were the girl, I would probably have responded with "I feel weird talking about I and you but sure we can talk about me and you."

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"...and the final is me!" - from a letter found at a bar.

"Common sense is not so common" - a Voltair quote that's printed on a cute green shirt that I got from YRYS a couple of years ago. The words are in a crossword puzzle-like design.

I'm usually not a grammar freak. I don't usually care. Heck, I even have my occasional grammar blunders too but I just couldn't pass this one up because of its simplicity. It just really bugs me so!