Our Bay-Area submitter returned from lunch one day to find this note from an anonymous concerned coworker.

“I’ll admit that I’ve gained about 15 pounds recently,” she says. However, “At 4’11 and normally around 95 pounds, even with the extra 15 I’m still within an acceptable weight range for my height.” But the real kicker, says our submitter?

“I’m also 5 months pregnant. I just haven’t made a big deal about it by talking incessantly about it or demanding special treatment like I’m God’s gift to the world just because I got myself knocked up.”

(So, uh, I think that’s a no, she won’t be seeing you there.)

related: I am beautiful, not matter what they say (or passive-aggressively insinuate)

Luckily, Liz in Houston convinced her work buddy not to forward this not-at-all-passive Jerry Springer-esque rant to the entire company e-mail list, as originally intended. (Otherwise, work buddy’s much-needed vacation might have turned out to be a permanent one.)

related: Do your stairs think you’re fat?

extra credit: How not to land an internship [gawker.com]

Katie in Oklahoma City was cleaning out a box of wedding memorabilia when she rediscovered this note from her mother, written just after she paid for Katie’s wedding dress.

Although I know a lot of brides who would have immediately ripped this card (and the enclosed check) to bits, Katie accepted the gift with impressively good humor. “I found it funny,” she says, “because it’s just the way my Mom is. She signed my Dad’s name too, but it’s from her…just her.”

“Oh, and just FYI,” Katie adds, “I think I weighed 115 pounds at the time this note was written.”

related: Loose lips shrink hips?

extra credit: We hope there’s a Borg scale for every bride! [LIFE magazine, 1961]

Sadly, not everyone shares Angela‘s compassion for the portly.

At Julie’s office in Alexandria, Virginia, one employee decided to formalize his or her grudge against artificial sweeteners (and us fatties who love them) with a little help from the reception desk label-maker. Protests Julie: “Hey, some of us just like our sucralose, okay? Or maybe we’re diabetic!”

(In one office break room in the Twin Cities, meanwhile, the sugar packets themselves do the talking…)

And across town at a different office in St. Paul, the office manager (“a fitness freak,” according to our submitter) takes the (relatively) constructive approach with her fellow employees — who are, our submitter agrees, “a bunch of lard-ass geeks who don’t exercise.” Um, thanks?

related: Do your stairs think you’re fat?

Our anonymous submitter from Herndon, Virginia and two of his friends — “all three of us on the large size” — were having lunch at a restaurant when a lady sitting nearby passed them this dear little note of encouragement.

related: hey, fatty

Rachel in Victoria, B.C. found this somewhat puzzling bit of anthropomorphism (stairs have feelings? really?) posted in the elevator of her building. “My favourite part is ‘your bum will love it,’” Rachel says. “No better way to guilt trip people into ‘saving energy’ than by insinuating that they’re fat!”

related: Hey, fatty

Christoph found this polite and friendly note on the door of his apartment in San Francisco. a reasonable enough request, to be sure, except for the fact that — despite his neighbor’s claimed omniscience — “I don’t own any exercise equipment.”

Admits Christoph: “The sound in question was likely a swivel chair…and my habit of rolling back and forth on it at 2 a.m.”

Meanwhile, Kate spotted this lonely stair-climber in the front yard of a nearby house in Snohomish, Washington. “It made me wonder whose stairmaster it really was,” Kate says, “and who wrote the note.” (A newly self-aware infomercial enthusiast? A bitter spouse?)

Alas, Kate says, “We may never know. The underused piece of exercise equipment was gone by morning.”

related: If you needed an excuse to skip the gym today
extra credit: The hawaii chair [youtube.com]

Awkward request, indeed.