When refrigerators speak

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October 9th, 2011 · 62 comments

THE LINE BREAKS

ON THIS NOTE

MAKE ME WANT…….TO

PUNCH SOMEONE

FILED UNDER: anthropomorphism · CAPS LOCK · office fridge · runaway run-on sentences · signed with love · Wisconsin · You call that punctuation?

62 responses so far ↓

#1 Somebody Else

First thought: “Look Mom, a talking fridge!”

Second thought: “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.” – Winston Churchill

Oct 9, 2011 at 6:54 pm rating: 90

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- #1.1 Canthz_B
  
  I think the fridge is dangling his participle at Sir Winston in disdain right about now.
  
  Fridges are notorious for not caring about poor grammar.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 3:00 pm rating: 90
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#2 randompherret

related link is broken

Oct 9, 2011 at 6:55 pm rating: 90

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#3 Nina

Storage shed for “exotic” food?

So, domestic food would be all right?

Oct 9, 2011 at 7:01 pm rating: 90

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- #3.1 Palomon
  
  Did he mean “toxic food?”
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 12:07 am rating: 90
- #3.2 Canthz_B
  
  Talking fridges filled with toxic exotic foods is a quixotic notion from jump street.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 3:05 pm rating: 90
- #3.3 Nocturnesthesia
  
  That’s PC-speak for “I don’t want any stanky diarrhea-inducing fishy-curried-clam sauce-bullshit that close to my American food”
  
  Oct 14, 2011 at 2:17 pm rating: 90
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#4 bc

they make storage sheds for exotic foods? i want one!

Oct 9, 2011 at 7:06 pm rating: 90

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#5 David Helgason

First.

Also, this based off of Suzanne Vega’s “My Name is Luka”. That’s actually kind of clever (and really awful, considering the song’s terrible meaning).

Oct 9, 2011 at 7:12 pm rating: 90

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#6 Ethan

Fixed link: http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2008/03/21/the-passive-aggressive-note-has-not-been-destroyed-it-has-been-solved/

Oct 9, 2011 at 7:14 pm rating: 90

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#7 anon mousie

link at the bottom is broken. Should be
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2008/03/21/the-passive-aggressive-note-has-not-been-destroyed-it-has-been-solved/ , it looks like.

Oct 9, 2011 at 7:21 pm rating: 90

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- #7.1 anon mousie
  
  Eh, Ethan beat me to it. And now whenever I try to edit or request deletion of my comment Firefox freezes up. I think I had better just give up now and let my slowness remain visible for eternity.
  
  Oct 9, 2011 at 7:32 pm rating: 90
- #7.2 TKD
  
  It’s OK Mousie, there are worse sins to commit. For instance you could arrogantly claim “First.” at number five.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 9:46 am rating: 90
- #7.3 park rose
  
  Or even at number one.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 8:48 pm rating: 90
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#8 Somebody Else

Saving up all the punctuation until the very last line always ends badly.

Oct 9, 2011 at 7:24 pm rating: 90

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#9 Guy

That ALL-CAPS and weird spacing is crazy-making, but Have You Ever Had Someone Post A Note Or Write Comments In A Comment Section With Every Word Beginning With A Capital Letter?
I am not sure why, but it just irritates the crap out of me!

Oct 9, 2011 at 7:29 pm rating: 90

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#10 Somebody Else

The last line is the one that really gets to me.

If a proper ellipsis had been used,

WITH LOVE … THE REFRIGERATOR

could have all fit on one line.

That last line just throws off the well-nuanced balance of the entire essay, aesthetically.

Oct 9, 2011 at 7:41 pm rating: 90

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- #10.1 Adriana
  
  If the note author were doing it right, there’d be no ellipisis at all. A comma would’ve worked just fine.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 11:10 am rating: 90
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#11 Nami

HI REFRIGERATOR
I AM EVERYBODY
AND I DON’T LIKE BEING TALKED DOWN TO

WITH LOVE…. EVERYBODY

Oct 9, 2011 at 7:49 pm rating: 90

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- #11.1 Ellipsis Police
  
  WITH LOVE … EVERYBODY
  
  3 dots. That’s all. 3. No more, no less. Just 3.
  
  xoxo
  
  Oct 9, 2011 at 7:56 pm rating: 90
- #11.2 Cinzia
  
  You mean: Three dots. That’s all. Three. No more, no less. Just 3.
  
  Oct 9, 2011 at 10:25 pm rating: 90
- #11.3 Canthz_B
  
  It’s not supposed to be an ellipsis, it’s a very small periodic table. Dot’s the whole point.
  
  Oct 9, 2011 at 10:33 pm rating: 90
- #11.4 Oh Geeee
  
  If you really want to do it correctly, shouldn’t the ellipsis have a space between each period? “. . .”. It helps stylistically as well, the look of space makes more poignant the intended pause.
  
  Oct 9, 2011 at 10:53 pm rating: 90
- #11.5 Dr. Chalkwitheringlicktacklefeff
  
  The fridge should get together with the freezer and microwave and form a union.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 5:24 am rating: 90
- #11.6 Jimmy James
  
  Three shall be the number of the dots, and the number of the dots shall be three. Thou shalt not put four dots, not shalt thou put two, unless thou proceedeth to put a third. Five is right out.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 8:58 am rating: 90
- #11.7 redheadwglasses
  
  You do use a fourth period to represent the end of the sentence.
  
  Oct 11, 2011 at 12:12 pm rating: 90
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#12 Common sense

Dear Refrigerator.

I dictate that you are a storage shed for food, period. Exotic or not. This is your definition. Accept it and shut up.

With love… Common Sense

Oct 9, 2011 at 8:17 pm rating: 90

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- #12.1 park rose
  
  There ain’t too many synonyms for refrigerator.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 8:08 am rating: 90
- #12.2 Palomon
  
  Ice box.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 11:08 am rating: 90
- #12.3 park rose
  
  Look, the fridge probably thought of ice box and dismissed it as too old-fashioned. Same as “Coolgardie Safe”. It was sleek and silver and modern, and didn’t want people to associate it with the last century. Whirlpool was incorrect when it was clearly a Sanyo, and with the current “buy locally” campaign, it didn’t want to draw attention to its own exotic origin.
  
  A quick flick through the (web) pages of the thesaurus might have rendered cooler, ice chest, but it wanted the idea that its vast cold interior could contain the huddled masses of the world’s food – except it couldn’t. It was a fridge of exclusion. A place for Walter Mitty-esque dreams to congeal, spread and evaporate.
  
  The fridge hoped to become a place where tools hung up their tools. In fact, the fridge had a bit of a carpenter complex, and I’m not talking the John Lennon/Lewis Carroll variety, in that it was so complex that it wasn’t one (a carpenter, that is. It was a fridge). And the most famous carpenter was exotic too, but this ice box was a self-hating Sanyo, and strongly in denial.
  
  If it believed with a Tinkerbell-like ferocity, then other’s would too, surely? If it could only refigure itself as a shed – and surely sheds stored things, same as fridges, so the idea was far from ludicrous – then wasn’t it setting up the ideal situation for people to store their Black and Deckers, or even better, their locally made bits and pieces, screws and screwdrivers on its white plastic-coated shelves?
  
  Maybe someone would even think to lug in a lathe, or a plane, or a woodturning gouge. How exciting would that be? Each piece of hardware bringing the refrigerator just that step closer to the actualisation of its true self.
  
  So, storage shed it was. The fridge renamed itself Kelvinator Costner. Build it and they will come, was its new motto. Better yet, build it with the tools held within, which were, last count, a soggy banana, a mouldy stew and some Thai chili sauce from 1992. Also, a curried egg sandwich in plastic wrap – one bite taken (and rewrapped, obviously!).
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 8:43 pm rating: 90
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#13 NutellaIshMehName

Dear Talking Refrigerator,

Wanna get together some time?

With love… Talking Microwave.

Oct 9, 2011 at 8:40 pm rating: 90

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#14 kacky

Gotta love OCD co-workers. Wait, No I don’t.

Oct 9, 2011 at 9:10 pm rating: 90

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#15 Canthz_B

I’d start to update my resumé as soon as I noticed my coworkers queue up to ask the office fridge the whereabouts of their lunches.

Oct 9, 2011 at 9:30 pm rating: 90

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#16 leoele

I bet if a fridge talked, it would sound like that!

Oct 9, 2011 at 10:36 pm rating: 90

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- #16.1 Canthz_B
  
  W-w-wouldn’t i-it s-s-stut-tu-ter bec-cause of th-the c-cold?
  
  Oct 9, 2011 at 10:43 pm rating: 90
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#17 Palomon

Did someone put magic hat on this fridge?

Oct 10, 2011 at 12:05 am rating: 90

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- #17.1 Jimmy James
  
  If it’s anything like my fridge, they put the Magic Hat in it, instead.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 9:01 am rating: 90
- #17.2 Palomon
  
  But does it begin to dance?
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 5:40 pm rating: 90
- #17.3 The Elf
  
  Is it Magic Hat beer? I fully support stocking the fridge with alcohol at work. Drink enough and it’ll talk all right. Maybe even dance. That sounds scary, but I always have the pink elephants to protect me when the appliances animate.
  
  Oct 11, 2011 at 8:30 am rating: 90
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#18 Dr. Chalkwitheringlicktacklefeff

You know what the worst thing about these notes is? In my experience, they’re generally left by people with no actual authority to act on them. It’s rarely the manager of an office who does this sort of thing; it’s usually just some sort of “concerned citizen” type sticking their nose in.

Well, when I’m at work I don’t take instructions from anonymous notes. If this were the instructions of someone in authority, it would have a signature on it.

Oct 10, 2011 at 5:20 am rating: 90

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- #18.1 Oh Geeee
  
  It does have a signature. It is clearly signed by the refrigerator, what more authority do you need?
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 6:59 am rating: 90
- #18.2 park rose
  
  Oh, come now, Dr. Chalkwitheringlicktacklefeff.
  It’s a very centred note.
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 8:09 am rating: 90
- #18.3 Dr. Chalkwitheringlicktacklefeff
  
  In a very real sense it’s completely justified, Park Rose, you’re right.
  
  Oct 12, 2011 at 9:42 am rating: 90
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#19 recoils

gee, the exotic food bit is Nasty. Sounds like a happy, friendly, open minded working environment.

Oct 10, 2011 at 7:35 am rating: 90

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#20 PANs_Labyrinth

PEOPLE WHO PRETEND TO BE A
FRIDGE, MICROWAVE,
HAIR DRYER ETC.
WHEN THEY WRITE PANS
STILL MAKE ME CRINGE
INSIDE ESPECIALLY
WHEN THEY DO IT
IN ALL CAPS

Oct 10, 2011 at 9:29 am rating: 90

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- #20.1 The Elf
  
  Totally. Refrigerators wouldn’t yell.
  
  Oct 11, 2011 at 8:32 am rating: 90
- #20.2 PANs_Labyrinth
  
  Totally, I just can’t imagine a yelling fridge. All the ones I know are pretty laid-back types; besides storing and cooling food, they don’t really get up to much. Definitely not the kind of appliance I’d call the life and soul of the kitchen/break room party.
  
  Oct 11, 2011 at 1:48 pm rating: 90
- #20.3 PANs_Labyrinth
  
  This in stark contrast to microwaves, some of which can’t seem to stop being whiny attention-seekers, and coffee-makers that are generally very forward and sometimes even downright rude.
  
  Oct 11, 2011 at 1:51 pm rating: 90
- #20.4 The Elf
  
  Refrigerators are wall-flowers.
  
  Oct 11, 2011 at 2:17 pm rating: 90
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#21 TKD

I am going back to that appliance store right now. The salesman told me I had the best fridge on the market. But all it does is make ice and dispense water. I want one that writes notes to me. I could use the companionship since the dog quit talking to me.

Oct 10, 2011 at 10:04 am rating: 90

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- #21.1 kermit
  
  Be careful what you wish for:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZztv_4ZdqE
  
  The next thing you know it will actually start talking to you, “hey fatso, shouldn’t you be eating the celery before it goes bad?”
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 7:13 pm rating: 90
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#22 redheadwglasses

This is a simple matter of someone not knowing how to change margins to accommodate their larger font size.

Oct 10, 2011 at 12:42 pm rating: 90

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#23 Bill

“Don’t leave your lunch inside me.”

There’s a movie there.

Oct 10, 2011 at 1:43 pm rating: 90

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- #23.1 The Elf
  
  It’s a box lunch. Fish taco.
  
  Oct 11, 2011 at 6:15 pm rating: 90
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#24 Daniel

Exotic food = a fancy way of saying “stripper food” …

Oct 10, 2011 at 2:33 pm rating: 90

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- #24.1 Canthz_B
  
  Who woulda thong it?
  
  Oct 10, 2011 at 2:51 pm rating: 90
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#25 Stephanie

Can someone please do a dramatic reading of this?

Oct 10, 2011 at 9:18 pm rating: 90

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#26 The Elf

Where I work, we use a standard form to describe things we need to fund in the future so we can adequately budget. It is not uncommon for people to cut and paste from other documents into the form. Naturally, they wouldn’t bother to reformat everything, and sometimes they’d throw in other formatting to create emphasis. So it was not uncommon to suddenly have a section in the form that was in a different font, centered with odd hard returns (like this), bolded, and underlined. It would make me insane because it is so very jarring.

And I’d be less inclined to support funding them.

Oct 11, 2011 at 8:26 am rating: 90

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- #26.1 Dr. Chalkwitheringlicktacklefeff
  
  I would reformat everything because I’m socially awkward and neurotic and would worry about what the person reading the form would think of me if I didn’t.
  
  Oct 12, 2011 at 9:44 am rating: 90
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#27 harv33

I think the talking fridge idea was cute… luckily, I was able to get what the fridge meant

Oct 12, 2011 at 8:06 am rating: 90

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#28 Geoff_Modulate

Does this imply that people actually ask where their lunch from last week is after it’s been in the fridge at work for a week?

Now either it’s gone really bad…in which case, let them eat it and suffer the consequences.

Or it hasn’t, in which case, what’s the problem?

Oct 12, 2011 at 3:02 pm rating: 90

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#29 Somebody Else

Talking refrigerators are cool.

Mutters to self: And I was *first*. I could have written that *first*. I could have been somebody. I coulda been a contender!

bangs head repeatedly …

Oct 14, 2011 at 10:01 pm rating: 90

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