Entries from July 2010
Though your attention might have drifted ever so briefly, I’d like to reassure you that the ongoing debate over which restrooms (men’s or women’s) are the foulest continues to rage on — and yes, it’s as nauseating as ever!
I literally received these two submissions — the first from an EMT school in Massachusetts, the second from a non-profit in D.C. — within minutes of each other. Mere coincidence? Or a cosmic clue from the Internet gods that it was time for a showdown between “Angulated Rectum Guy” and “The Queen of Diahrriah?” Okay, that was a gimme. The real question: who would you rather share a loo with?
Exhibit A) as witnessed by Josh in Fall River, Mass.

Exhibit B) From an anonymous bystander in College Park, Maryland

related: And you thought college students were foul…
Tags: bathroom · bold-underlined-caps · D.C. · ellipses-crazed · exclamation-point happy!!!! · Massachusetts · obnoxious definition · office · shit · spelling and grammar police · that's disgusting · toilet
“My next-door neighbor has some problems with controlling her rage,” says Guy in Austin. So when the apartment manager wouldn’t force her upstairs neighbors to take down their bird feeder — on the grounds that the resulting bird crap from above constituted plant harassment — she wasn’t about to let the issue drop quietly.
![I cannot have my plants because the person upstairs is harrasing [sic] my plants + me. I cannot have my plants because the person upstairs is harrasing [sic] my plants + me.](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4140/4802385326_205d585a7c.jpg)
![I cannot have my plants because the person upstairs is harrasing [sic] my plants + me. I cannot have my plants because the person upstairs is harrasing [sic] my plants + me.](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4123/4802385206_c662166151.jpg)
Meanwhile, Lucas brings us this report of a uncontrollable botanophile on the loose at his office in Toronto.

Tags: Austin · flowers, trees, houseplants & gardens · neighbors · rebuttals · smartass · Toronto
If you’d like to join a vigilante punctuation posse or a grassroots typography militia, Washington State might be the place for you.
In one Seattle suburb, for example, an underground group has targeted a certain “JS,” who sources say “has some serious control/micromanagement issues, and enjoys flaunting his power to tell people what to do a liiiittle too much. He also tends to find nasty ways to get revenge on people who contradict him.”
![Please leave out apostrophe's [sic] / symbols from customer names (commas - OK) JS Please leave out apostrophes from plural nouns. Please leave out apostrophe's [sic] / symbols from customer names (commas - OK) JS Please leave out apostrophes from plural nouns.](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4047/4678366801_edd1f19d91.jpg)
Elsewhere in Seattle, “office professionalism” seems to have no bearing on freedom of speech…as long as you use the right typeface, of course.

related: Completely valid rebuttals
Tags: "too inside fucking baseball" · apostrophe catastrophe · awk abbrev · Comic Sans Alert · Helsinki · most popular notes of 2010 · music · not-so-veiled threats
Larissa in Tacoma, Washington recently sent her 7-year-old son, Silas, to a week of Bible camp. When he came home, Larissa says, she wondered if the experience hadn’t left him a bit…conflicted…especially after seeing the pillow he made during craft time.
(“Rouls,” by the way, is not Silas’s last name. That’s the 7-year-old spelling of “RULES.”)
![Silas [rules] God's Word is Comforting DOOM Silas [rules] — God's Word is Comforting — DOOM](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4800379907_d1d4ea244a.jpg)
Meanwhile, I can see how the sign below, from a candy store in Rayne, Louisiana — which I assume was intended to deter this theft — could easily send a particular type of child into a tailspin of religious guilt.
Is God smiling? How do I know if God’s smiling? Does God like chocolate? I don’t think chocolate’s in the Bible. But Proverbs says: ‘My child, eat honey, for it is good.’ So maybe I should get a Bit o’ Honey instead. But a Bit o’ Honey costs more than 50 cents, and Mom said I could only spend 50 cents. So then I’d be dishonoring my parents, and that wouldn’t make God happy. So maybe I should…maybe I should….[bursts into tears]

related: What Would Jesus Do for a Klondike Bar?
Tags: candy · God · guilt trip · Jesus · kids · Louisiana · not so much passive-aggressive · retail hell · Tacoma
You’re a zookeeper. You’re sick of answering the same damn question all day long. How do you handle it?
Well, there’s the PC approach…

The pedantic approach…

And then there’s my personal favorite, the German approach.

(Thanks to Gina in Cincinnati, Sarah in Los Angeles, and Andrea in Berlin for their submissions!)
related: Don’t die; it’s expensive
Tags: animal welfare · Berlin · Deutsche · Kentucky · most popular notes of 2010 · New Jersey
Amanda in Charlestown, Mass. lives in a three-story home with an apartment on each floor and a shared patio out back. “Our downstairs neighbor is notorious for leaving us notes — ‘Don’t slam the door,’ ‘The patio is not a storage area,’ etc. — but this note topped them all,” Amanda says. ”Oh, and she clearly cannot spell.”
![Just wanted to let you guys know that I bought all the furnature [sic] out back. It is not for you to use. Thanks [redacted] Just wanted to let you guys know that I bought all the furnature [sic] out back. It is not for you to use. Thanks [redacted]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2710/4517371051_01b9eab35a_b.jpg)
related: Thank you for not using my grill again
Tags: Massachusetts · neighbors · nice stationery · sharing is caring · spelling and grammar police
One reason that notes of the do this/move this/clean this variety inspire so much ire among recipients is the fact that, more often than not, writing the note probably took more time and effort than it would have for the writer to just do/move/clean it themselves. (But of course, to the martyrs in the office, it’s always about the principle of the thing.) Office kitchens seem to be ground zero for this particular type of pettiness.
At Jacqueline’s workplace in San Francisco, for example, “someone left a clean mug on an empty counter” — an offense that was apparently too grave for one coworker to let slide without comment.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, our anonymous submitter came into work one morning to see this note “on a table with maybe two crumbs on it.” Her solution? “I took the picture, put the cleaning supplies away, and moved the note. Later, I was thanked for cleaning the table.”

related: BAD SALAMI!
Tags: a little uptight · cleaning · office · Ohio · San Francisco
So, according to Susan and Amber, there’s a creeper on the loose in Orlando, Florida…one who has a penchant for peering in the bathroom windows of his female neighbors. (In this case, a window that some brilliant architect decided to position essentially in the shower.)

Of course, there’s always another side to the story.

So, how ever could Susan and Amber resolve this tomato/tomahto dispute (aside from, you know, buying curtains)? Dr. Tobias Fünke, never-nude, to the rescue!

related: Be more private with yourself
Tags: "up for debate" · neighbors · note wars · Orlando