The Oxford comma, and the wrong way.

I know some of you will have felt the wrath of my pedantic nagging on this issue already, but I regularly run into the issue of either inadequate or incorrect comma placement.  Now, don't get me wrong, as far as fiction is concerned, I'm all about maximal leeway for writers to punctuate as they see fit; where I have to draw the line is when clarity becomes an issue.  

In fact, there is no real convention stating whether you shall or shan't run the Oxford in a sentence, as with and without are both grammatically correct.  Some style guides would have you use it, some would not, so there's no legal standing for anything I'm blathering on about here.  

So, to the aforementioned 'clarity' issue.  I think my favorite example that I found (and shamelessly stole) off the internet is as follows:

        At my grandfather's funeral there were two strippers, his wife and his sister.

Can everyone see how this might be problematic?  Let us add the Oxford and see how this sentence changes:

        At my grandfather's funeral there were two strippers, his wife, and his sister.

Not only has this added some clarity as to who's who, but the number of the people at the funeral goes from two, to four.  

Also when the Oxford is omitted, the last two items listed are lumped together as a common subject in the minds of many a reader.  Now, all this can be fixed by completely restructuring your sentence to split up the three listed items, and some would say this is the correct course of action, but who has the time, and who speaks like that anyways?  

If you are one of those who stubbornly refuses to accept the superiority of the Oxford, try looking over some of your past sentences and seeing how much confusion you've caused with your wanton disregard for easy comprehension before again setting out to raise my blood pressure.