At Nat’s office in York, England, one of his coworkers has been trying to bully everyone into coughing up some cash for an (admittedly worthy) charitable cause.

In Nat’s opinion, however, her guilt-heavy fund-raising techniques might benefit from a little fine-tuning…especially given that all seven of those special “charity pens” were nicked from the office supply closet.

related: Starve on!

In one of my clearest memories of first grade, I distinctly remember my teacher telling us, on the first day of school, that the bathroom in the back of the classroom was only for emergencies. For non-emergencies, we’d have to wait until lunchtime. In my six-year-old mind, however, “emergency” meant only one thing: “throwing up.”  And so, when I had to go, I held it. And held it. Until…well, I wasn’t holding it anymore.

That’s right: It actually took wetting my pants for me to learn that the word “emergency” means very different things to different people — a concept some people apparently still haven’t figured out.

It’s unclear, for example, what might constitute a “citrus emergency” at this Pleasanton, California optometrist’s office. (Perhaps a masochistic mandarin peeling itself?)

You might think people would be a little more precise in their language on a military base. At Arizona’s Fort Huachuca, you’d only be about half right.

At Gustavo’s new office building in Seattle, it only took about a week — and about a bazillion false alarms— before someone decided a little clarification was necessary. (Sorta sounds like something you’d expect from a classroom of first-graders, no?)

Meanwhile, Andrew in Cirencester, England only noticed this sign after pushing open one of his office’s alarmed fire doors (triggering a sudden and unforeseen occurrence — i.e., ear-shattering noise).

related: Gee, thanks for the clarification

At the local community centre, Isabel in Bolton, England (Home of the “White Men”) spotted this board put together by some Sunday School children entitled “My Mum is Special.” (Kudos to the teachers for allowing the kids considerable latitude in how they chose to define “special.”)

related: My Mommy is special because she has a potty mouth.

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.”

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

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

The following message is a bit long, yes, but I had to post it because it reads uncannily like what I imagine as the epistolary novel of the future — complete with an unreliable narrator à la the Adrian Mole Diaries (or the sub-par American ripoff, Youth in Revolt).

It comes to us from Helen in Northern Ireland, who gives the following backstory:  ”So, I met a friend of a friend on a night out and he offered to ‘walk me home.’ Seeing right through that clever ruse, I left, only to be bombarded with no fewer than four texts, a Facebook message and a voicemail all saying some inebriated yet romantic things.”

Months later, Helen ran into a mutual friend of this would-be Lothario, and casually said something along the lines of, ‘He tried to walk me home once, but I think he is a bit strange.’ Shortly thereafter, she received this gem of a Facebook message. “Luckily,” Helen says, “he removed and blocked me from Facebook immediately after sending it. Nice chap!”

related: And women like u wonder why u get judged and labeled shallow

Jane in Boston says this note appeared on Tomio’s bedroom door, at cat’s-eye level. “Given that I’m pretty sure cats can’t read, it’s the ultimate passive-aggressive sentiment,” Jane says, “but a cat shitting on your bed is pretty passive aggressive, too. What a tangled web we weave.”

Meanwhile, a submitter in Cornwall, England spotted this note (again, at pet’s-eye level) on the front door of a house. “It was unclear what the dog had done, how the notewriter expected the dog to read this, or how ‘Diane’ was filming the dog,” our submitter says. “There was no sign of a camera.”

And yet, it’s this commandment —posted by a neighbor of Marissa in San Francisco — that tickles me the most.

UPDATE: A bonus note (via Anthonio in Seattle), from…Dirt.

related: Excuse me, sir? I think you’ve dropped something.

Mark from Liverpool spotted this sign in the window of a vintage clothing store in the center of Rome. Please, someone go take a dump in their fitting room.

Meanwhile, as Tyler and his pals discovered, this vintage store in Madison, Wisconsin is apparently only obnoxious to its actual customers. “The changing rooms were covered in notes,” Tyler says, “and the old woman behind the counter had a continuous look of disdain on her face. It took us a while to realize that was just the way she rested her face.”

Rather than, say, passing judgment on the sizes of their potentially TOO LARGE waists.

related: Yo, sweaty beasts!

What does “fashion forward” mean to you?

…the proprietors of this Toronto bar will leave you pondering some different questions instead.

Meanwhile, as Will observed, a Shell station in Austin apparently abides by a similar “honesty is the best” policy.

…as does a shopping center in Tyler, Texas, where Erin spotted this explanation (on a 100-degree July day).

Similar venting was on display at a store in Ironton, Ohio. (“For the record, I cannot validate whether or not the ‘oner’ was an in fact an asshole,” says submitter Meagan.)

And smetimes, of course, brutal honesty isn’t enough.

So really, why bother with an explanation at all?

related: Closed for good! Remember that the cheese loved you more than you loved it.

At first glance, would you assume that the the writer of this note….

a) is kind of a racist prick?

b) has a thing against students/alumni from a certain university in Providence, R.I.?

c) has a penchant for using confusing euphemisms for bodily waste?

I’ll admit I assumed the answer was either a or b, until I read the submitter’s explanation about where the note was found: above the stinky toilet in a share house of (mostly male) British university students.

The verdict: Still offensive, just, you know, in a different way.

related: 2 notes, 1 cupcake