If you’re looking for an opportunity to study the unique social behavior of primates, there’s a compound in Orlando, Florida you might be interested in visiting.

Consider the package below, which a female named Misty (and no, that’s not a pseudonymous nod to Dian Fossey) recently found outside her dwelling, #14302, apparently left there by the group of lower-ranking females residing directly below.

As you’ve observed, Dr. Goodall, dominant female chimpanzees have been known to deliberately kill the young of other females in the troop in order to maintain their dominance, so perhaps the preemptive Heath-bar offering accompanying the plea for quiet was an intelligent move on the part of these lesser-ranked females.

I’m sure you’ll agree, however, that further scientific study is necessary before any conclusions are drawn.

related: Please get yourself some slippers.

Larissa in Tacoma, Washington recently sent her 7-year-old son, Silas, to a week of Bible camp. When he came home, Larissa says, she wondered if the experience hadn’t left him a bit…conflicted…especially after seeing the pillow he made during craft time.

(“Rouls,” by the way, is not Silas’s last name. That’s the 7-year-old spelling of “RULES.”)

Meanwhile, I can see how the sign below, from a candy store in Rayne, Louisiana — which I assume was intended to deter this theft — could easily send a particular type of child into a tailspin of religious guilt.

Is God smiling? How do I know if God’s smiling? Does God like chocolate? I don’t think chocolate’s in the Bible. But Proverbs says: ‘My child, eat honey, for it is good.’ So maybe I should get a Bit o’ Honey instead. But a Bit o’ Honey costs more than 50 cents, and Mom said I could only spend 50 cents. So then I’d be dishonoring my parents, and that wouldn’t make God happy. So maybe I should…maybe I should….[bursts into tears]

related: What Would Jesus Do for a Klondike Bar?

According to reports we’re receiving here at PAN headquarters, it appears that proletarians with a predilection for the chocolate-cookie-caramel confection known as Twix are battling Soviet-like conditions in order to procure their precious candy bars. 

In some areas, workers are forced to pay a hefty premium (unlike the bosses and bigwigs upstairs). 

Even then, what remains for the masses is likely to be rejected, bottom-of-the-carton stock.

And in the hardest hit areas, shortages have led hungry Twix lovers to beg for mercy from The Man himself. 

(Thanks to informants Sean in Philadelphia, Rachel in Salt Lake City, and Mark in Buffalo.)

related: Comrades, take notice!

extra credit: Twix bars unfairly taxed in Colorado? [WSJ.com]

This is one of those notes I’ve spent far too long puzzling over. The frustratingly random capitalization, the misuse of/missing punctuation, the center justification, and of course, THE BOX. WHY THE BOX?

Sir/ma’am, I will gladly supply you with as many Baby Ruths as you can stuff down your gullet if you can reconstruct the thought process that led to this note.

related: and yet…the pink flowers?

“One morning last summer,” writes Stephanie in Illinois, “my brother and I arrived at the company where we worked to find these notes posted to the candy vending machine. (Mind you, it was 8:45 a.m.) Apparently, the man who fills the vending machines — a.k.a ‘Mr. Candyman’ — had failed to restock the machine for a week, and the ladies of the office had had enough.”

I mean, really. we’re talking about a serious breach of the social contract here, people!

Stephanie and I were both particularly tickled by the the “gas prices” note at top right. (“What does that even mean?” she wonders.)

Meanwhile, Lisa in Nashville spotted this note posted on the vending machine in the studio arts building at Vanderbilt University. “There had been many previous notes asking (nicely) for more Twizzlers,” Lisa says, but as desperation set in, at least one distraught staff member decided to get lyrical on Candyman’s ass.

related: The Pepsi Challenge

Spotted by Lange from Cambridge, Massachusetts while campaigning for Obama in New Hampshire. Says Lange: “We decided against bugging them with our political spiel. (We assumed they were Obama supporters anyway.)”

Meanwhile, corporate belt-tightening isn’t going over so well with the office grunts this Halloween. “This was the response to the environment/holiday committee’s lack of Halloween candy in the office after already ‘decorating’ the office with empty candy containers,” says our submitter in Los Angeles.

In Oakridge, Oregon, however — as our submitter Tyree noticed — they don’t go in much for subtlety.

related: Pumpkin with a death wish