Is your toilet acting up again? Has your plumber already thrown up his hands and said he’s done everything he can? Perhaps it’s time you turned to Dr. Josiah Carberry, foremost expert in psychoceramics, to determine what’s really got your pot cracked.

Just take a look at these real-life examples:

1. Diagnosis: Irritable Bowl Syndrome

2. Diagnosis: Gross motor skill impairment

3. Diagnosis: Projection and Displacement behaviors potentially indicative of a narcissistic personality type…or too many episodes of The Sopranos

(Thanks to Adam in New York, Janet in Northern Virginia, and Tamie in Tampa for their submissions…and apologies to any readers offended by the excessive use of puns.)

related: Five reasons to be glad you’re not a plumber

While scanning the Celebrations section of the local newspaper, Caroline in Raleigh, North Carolina was amused to see this unusual little “non-wedding announcement.”

And while I’m sure the editors (bless their hearts) were just pleased by this cheeky bit of “outside the box” feature-writing — with no implied judgement regarding a young woman’s lack of an MRS. degree — the “tsk-tsking” feel of the last line (unintentional or not) still made me feel like I was reading a Junior League newsletter from 1962.

related: The “Next to Marry” List

extra credit: Dad glad for three weddings [newsobserver.com]

One day, says Nancy in Arizona, her dad was getting in his car during his lunch break from Lowe’s (the home-improvement big-box store), when he found this note tucked into his door frame.

“He was surprised,” Nancy says, but instead of taking the contrarian approach, dear old Dad decided to humor the person and move his car one spot over. At the end of the day, he actually got a glimpse of the notewriter — a “rather old lady” who works as the store’s phone operator.

“We spent a lot of time discussing her possible reasons for wanting that specific parking spot back,” Nancy says — especially given that it doesn’t seem to have any particular advantage over the other 500 or so spots in the lot — but in the end, they just had to laugh.

related: I’m gonna say this in the nicest way possible: don’t park in my spot.

Our submitter, Rob in Cleveland, says he found this note on his computer screen upon returning to his desk after lunch one day. “I honestly don’t bring my toenail clippers to work,” Rob says. “They were just hurting inside my pocket so I put them on my desk and forgot about them, and this is what I get.”

At first glance, I thought the note must have been sarcastic — surely, no one would actually borrow another’s toenail clippers, right? — so I asked Rob for some clarification.

As it turns out, Rob is pretty sure the note was no joke. “The guy who wrote it is one of the grossest people at work,” he explains. And as for why he had toenail clippers in his pocket to begin with? Says Rob: “I cut my nails in my car on the way to work.”

Of course. Well, I’m glad we cleared that one up.

related: The Jake Issues

Hannah spotted this warning (and the accompanying Fire-Marshal takedown) posted at the University of Alaska art building in Juneau. On the ground floor.

“It’s the ground floor; only an idiot would use the stairs to escape a fire. There’s a door over there ->  - if it’s on fire –  <-There’s a door over there.”

“WHERE’S YOUR IMAGINATION?”

“DUH, HE SOLD IT TO PAY FOR COLLEGE.”

“What are you talking about? I’m imagining students cramming into the stairwell per this sign’s advice, just to get upstairs and see an identical sign directing them back down into the flames.”

Adding to the sign’s absurdity, Hannah says, is the fact that “the building is only two stories, and built at the base of an embankment. The upper floor can be accessed by the street on the upper level, and the lower level can be accessed either by stairs from the upper level or by at least four exit doors on the lower level.”

related: Snark-itti