Many offices, it seems, are a regular Disneyland of what only appear to be inanimate objects. The evidence?

From Frank in San Francisco, a sentient sponge:

From Amy in Annapolis, Maryland, a talking toilet:

From Ben in San Antonio, Texas, a talking door:

And then there’s my favorite – from an anonymous submitter in Washington, D.C. – a talking (and walking) microwave:

(Most baffling…where on earth did that clip art come from?)

related: I guess that’s why

“We really don’t hate the holidays,” says our anonymous foreign-policy elf in Washington, D.C., “just passive-aggressive coworkers.”

related: Perhaps a committee to assess the health of the committee?

Tourist traps have the best signs. More proof? This exercise in subtlety is from Provincetown, Mass., where it was spotted by intrepid vacationer Teresa from Boise.

Exhibit b) is from Washington, D.C., in a store Sam says sold “all sorts of crap, from Nixon and Michael Jackson pins to African drums and sweaters.”

And in Las Vegas, even “the ice cream of the future” doesn’t get a special exemption.

“The Healthy Companies Committee,” explains Katherine in D.C., is the name of the office pep squad led by the sender of the e-mail. (“Ironically,” she adds, “he does not seem to be able to deal with his frustration in a ‘healthy’ way.”)

The hilarity of this note is more subtle than say, a “Thank you Terry,” but don’t be fooled: it’s not your garden-variety “do your dishes” note, either. (Pay particular attention to paragraphs one and four.) It’s like something straight out of a script from The Office.

Don’t you wish you could read the earlier drafts?

I’m just gonna let Ben from D.C. set this one up:

Last October, I moved from one apartment to another on fairly short notice. The kid I found on Craigslist to take my spot really wanted to move in a few days early, which was incredibly inconvenient for me. However, I agreed, so I spent most of Halloween weekend moving my stuff out. The one thing I couldn’t move was my futon, because it wouldn’t fit on top of my car. I figured he’d give me a little leeway though, since I’d done him a favor, and I came back to pick it up November 10. A week later I came home to find this amazing passive-aggressive e-mail from him:

“Is it doubly passive aggressive to use this site to convey this message?  I am the creator of this note, and the photo depicts actual conditions. I would love to send a post of this to said roommate at work.” —flushpatrol in Washington, D.C.

related: servicing over a half-billion people…each and every day.

Scott saw this note posted to the refrigerator of his friends’ house in D.C. and surreptitiously snapped a photo. “I didn’t want to pry by pulling out the whole note,” he says. “I’m pretty sure Alex was a roommate in the house at some point, but it’s probably been years.”

The magnet’s a nice touch, though, right?

This is a special note indeed. The idiosyncratic spelling, spacing, and bolding are fascinating — and I love how the third sentence is so rhetorical it doesn’t even deserve a question mark. I think what I enjoy most, however, is the after-the-fact realization that the desired action here just wasn’t quite explicit enough.

(Thanks to Molly in Washington, D.C. for submitting!)

related: The needy little dishwasher