So, one morning, Emily was riding the train from the ’burbs into downtown Chicago, minding her own business like all the other commuters. All of sudden, she says, “about 10 minutes before we reached Union Station, the woman sitting directly in front of me turned and handed me this note without saying a word.”

Hello, awkward!

related: You seem nice, but please don’t sit near me ever again.

Halloween was just a prelude, really —it’s Christmas that brings the real bounty of guilt-trip opportunities, often with a bonus side helping of irony.

To wit: Jaime in Canada says his neighbor (okay, “neighbour”) went totally Clark Griswold with his Christmas decorating this year, creating a sparkling extravaganza that is, Jaime says, “quite the treat for the eyes.”

But the best part of the display might be what stands in front of Santa and his team of reindeer  — an ellipses-and-exclamation-fueled cautionary tale about the true meaning of Christmas…consumerism!!! (Take that, Tiny Tim!)

related: Who stole and vandalized a candy cane? Who stole the baby Jesus??

Christian and John in Manchester, U.K. spotted this sign in the library of Manchester Metropolitan University…where the fridge thieves must be really, really ruthless (or the librarians very, very dotty).

This particular library, says John, “is where the vast majority of the university’s science and law students go. I have to wonder what sort of a university I go to if prospective engineers, biologists, chemists, physicists and lawyers have to be specifically asked not to put food in the toilet brush holders.”

Adds Christian: “I imagine a further note reading: ‘Please Do Not Poop On The Ceiling.’”

Meanwhile, in Cambridge…further evidence of U.K. university students’ curious predilection for eating while toileting.

related: Pizza box as air freshener?

Kat is currently living abroad teaching English in Japan, and although she speaks to her parents every week, that’s apparently not cutting it with her Dad, who’d prefer more detailed letters.

Rather than communicate this directly to Kat, however, Daddy dearest decided to use the family’s new kitten, Faisal, as his mouthpiece. The result? The finest in super kawaii emotional manipulation!

Now somebody get that man a wasabi-flavored Kit Kat, stat.

related: I can has guilt trip?

Now, our submitter Kenny doesn’t want to you to get the wrong idea about his buddy Lamar. Yes, Lamar drives an old church van, but he works at a piercing parlor — he’s not the kind of rabble-rouser who’d go around doing things like, say, “feeding the hungry.”

Apparently, however, one of Lamar’s neighbors in the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta saw the van and concluded otherwise — leaving behind this disapproving note for him to meditate on.

related: Find somewhere else to sleep and piss

extra credit: Donate to the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless via PayPal

Donate to the National Alliance to End Homelessness via PayPal

Matt, a law student in Boston, surmises that this note posted in the school’s student lounge was written by non-native English speaker  — “the other possibility being that the stress of exams has eaten away at his ability to write coherently.” But what’s curious about this note isn’t the spelling and grammar so much as the the variety and specificity of immediate punishments that are promised within.

“For example,” asks Matt: “Will the food choke the perpetrator, or will Frank be the choker?  How will the burns be administered to the sleeper?” And so on. ”In any case,” he adds, “at least the various threatened deaths won’t be drawn out. (Also, to the best of my knowledge, there is no ‘video record’ of the refrigerator.)”

related: Testosterone-fueled wackjobs make the dardnest threats!

Our submitter, a bartender in D.C., might not be the world’s biggest Mariah Carey fan, but when a group of customers put “All I Want for Christmas is You,” on the jukebox last Saturday night, he didn’t complain. But when the same group queued the song up again — three times in a row — he invoked his bartender’s privilege and skipped it. After all, he says, “It was DECEMBER 4th. I gave them their money back, but they still kept calling me ‘Grinch.’”

I have to step in here and note that, yes, that song is like crack — once you’re hooked, one hit is never enough. But that’s when you go home and spend the 99 cents to download it so you can indulge your addiction on endless repeat without coughing up a quarter every time. However, money management not being the forte of most addicts, at the end of the night the holiday-happy patrons left behind this oh-so-classy note in lieu of a tip.

That very same weekend, meanwhile, Amy noticed that the bartender at one of her local haunts in Murrysville, Pennsylvania has taken a proactive approach to this particular problem. “Normally a super friendly place, I was sooo tempted to play ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ just to see what they would do.” (Instead, she held on to that feeling — privately — and took a picture.)

related: “You Can Call Me Arse”: A review of last night’s performance

extra credit: Jukebox Etiquette 101

Our submitter spotted this amazing stream-of-consciousness manifesto inside a small tea shop in Hertfordshire, U.K. “I especially like the lack of punctuation, constantly shifting tone, and preachy generalizations,” she says. “Apparently it’s not enough to simply request that customers wipe their feet or use a trash can — it’s necessary to subject them to a generational guilt trip as well.”

related: That must be some damn good coffee…