Angela and her father were poking around the local dollar store in Metuchen, New Jersey when we they came across these boxes of Christmas lights.

“We originally thought these vaguely ominous messages were meant to harken back to the ‘true spirit of Christmas’ but these threats don’t exactly engender goodwill toward men,” Angela says. “I don’t know for whom these vaguely ominous messages are really intended, but s/he must have seriously pissed off the manufacturer.”

related: Subliminal self-esteem killers

extra credit: Evil Elf on the Shelf

Writes Roxanne in New Jersey: “When my niece, Diana, returned from a yearbook-signing party, she showed me this inscription from a girl who Diana says she hardly even knows. We’re both dying to know what those terrible warnings about her could have been (but of course, grateful that Leah apparently gave her a chance in spite of them.)”

related: 2good 2be 4gotten

Nadia in Greensboro, North Carolina spotted this gem of a “you break it, you buy it” specimen at a local thrift store. “Apparently,” she writes, “Secondhand Punctuation Has Its Drawbacks? You Can’t Pick And Choose? You Have To Make Do With What You Have On Hand? Handwritten Notes Are Not Exceptions?”

The D.C. tourist trap that Amy visited took a less tentative tack with its signage, though I doubt the “four times is better than one” approach is any more effective.

These two stores, on the other hand, pretty much nail it with reverse psychology.

related: As Davy Crockett once said…

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

Just in time for WTF? Friday…

Exhibit a) Posted on the front door of Ruth‘s apartment complex just outside Washington, D.C.

Exhibit b) From a parole liaison at the New Jersey Department of Corrections:

Exhibit c) From a vacation rental home in Maine, as spotted by Mike from Philadelphia, who adds, “I’m allergic to type set in Comic Sans.”

related: Screenbeans are never okay

This first note, spotted by Nick, is from a school in New Jersey; the second, from DeAnna and Shawn, was taken at a school in Stony Brook, New York. Apart from those details… not really all that different, eh?

(I don’t think Monopoly-land has universal health care, though.)

Love you, Canada! And your loonies, too.

related: putting 50 pennies in here is a hostile act

This first note was posted in the bathroom of the Gay Pride Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey; the second, in the bathroom of the Rhode Island Department of Health in Providence.

I’d probably recommend steering clear of the kitchen sinks at both facilities.

related: a filthy hap pit

Spotted in the basement of a New Jersey church where people play bingo all the time. Adds submitter Yamis: “I guess we know the demographics of the crowd.”

related: More like hardly working

Our anonymous submitter in New Jersey found this note taped to every apartment door in his complex. “We do indeed have a problem with feral cats in our neighborhood, but my sense is that they’ve been around for many (cat) generations…not that people are buying new ones.”

Adds our submitter: “Now that I think about it, I’m probably a bad person for finding this funny, but really, the all-bold, all-caps “LET HER DEATH BE ON YOUR HEAD!!!” is just so perfectly over the top. Personally, I would have gone with “A POX ON ALL YOUR HOUSES!!!”

related: I can has guilt trip?

Jasy from Laurel, Maryland spotted this beauty while driving down the New Jersey Turnpike.

“I’m dying to know just how blasphemous Denise is to deserve the sign,” Jasy says. “But is it really that surprising that the Anti-Christ would claim Jersey as home base?”

related: No, He uses Vaseline
extra credit: “Hey, look our toll plaza over” [nytimes.com]