I happen to have a lot of friends who are teachers, and it kills me when they say things like, “Oh, I confiscated the funniest passive-aggressive note today from a kid in my class. I wish I could give it to you, but I don’t want to lose my job.” (Of course, given the state of education funding in Texas, that’s not mere paranoia talking.)

Luckily, there are enough self-aware parents out there like Carmen (a.k.a. “drunk mommy”) to fill the kids say the dardnest fuckin’ shit category of notes that some of you love and some of you can’t stand.

One of those parents is Sheila in Indiana. Her first grader, Andrew, “has had a rough year,” Sheila says, “and is in trouble for talking too much every single day.” When she gave him a card to sign for Teacher Appreciation Day, this is what he wrote.

Meanwhile, Jessie in Utah says that for teacher appreciation day at her first grader’s school, the kids were all asked to write something they appreciated about their teacher on paper butterflies displayed on the door and wall outside the classroom. The anonymous nature of the project seems to have yielded mixed results.

To wrap things up, I just had to pull out this first grader’s letter from the archives. (And no, like many notes on this site, it isn’t passive-aggressive — or even mean-spirited — just adorably bizarre.)

related: (Not) so nice, (Not) so smart

Jill from Baltimore is in her early 30s now, so she has enough distance from her childhood self to laugh at the passive-aggressiveness of this Mother’s Day card she made when she 11 or 12. “I love that I used Mother’s Day as an opportunity to not only tell my mom how great she is, but also to not-so-subtly point out her shortcomings.”

(If you were wondering about the “NA,” Dad did the cooking.)

related: Happy F’ing Mother’s Day!

“My neighbor taped this note to my door,” says Valerie in Portland. “I don’t know who scratched her car, but I do know she could benefit from spell check.” (Harumph.)

related: Unattended children will be shot.

When my younger brother Danny was around 6 or 7, I remember he brought home a project he’d done in school — a little book entitled “My Family,” or something like that. I don’t recall what he said about the rest of us, but on the page about our mother, he had written: “MOM BRINGS DINNER,” complete with a stick-figure drawing of her with McDonald’s bags in both hands. We all laughed about it, but I think my mother was still pretty mortified —  and god only knows what his teacher thought.

Well, Mom, allow me to introduce you to Carmen: you two might be able to commiserate. When her son (who is, coincidentally, also named Daniel) was 6, his first grade teacher had the kids write little journal entries about their weekends every Monday. This was Daniel’s. (The teacher’s feedback is my favorite part.)

Carmen is quick to add that she was most definitely not “drunk” — in fact, on this particular occasion, she hadn’t had a single alcoholic beverage. But just try explaining that to the school guidance counselor…

related: Just in case you haven’t gotten your fix of working mom guilt…your kid’s preschool teacher is ready to step up!

extra credit: Red Party Cups for Classy Moms

For a second-grade assignment, Gayle‘s daughter Martha, age 7, was assigned to write an acrostic poem about a family member, using descriptive words beginning with each letter of their title (Mother, Grandpa, etc.) Martha chose to compose this loving ode to her SISTER.

related: The rift that keeps on giving

Writes Tracie in Sleaford, England: “My daughter Daisy (9) is a super kid…until she’s asked to tidy her room.”

(Then she’s just downright adorable.)

P.S. “Fillets” is the name of the fish & chip shop in town.

related: (I’m Gonna) Run Away

Katie doesn’t remember writing this note (which she found while going through old papers of her mom’s) but says, “I do feel sorry for little 11-year-old me, having to deal with being falsely accused of *gasp* faking illness to get out of school, and then having to deal with the humiliation of public grandma affection.”

Adds Katie: “My favorite part is at the beginning where I unintentionally implied that my mother was some kind of slut. (At the time, she worked around a lot of truckers and always had funny stories about them trying to hit on her.) Also, you can totally tell that we had worked on letter-writing/dialogue skills in school recently.”

related: A thinly veiled tattletale

extra credit: “I Enjoy Being a Girl, Sort of” [This American Life]

In a brief moment of silence at a Christmas celebration, 7-year-old Madyson happened to let one rip. “We all laughed and told her to say ‘excuse me,’” says her cousin, Carrie in Detroit, but instead, the mortified girl ran out of the room. A few minutes later, she returned to fling this note in her family’s general direction.

Well, Madyson, you learned a valuable lesson this Christmas: parents are mean. But getting the hell out of Detroit? That’s actually not a bad idea. (Make a break for it now, and that passing of gas could be the best thing you never did!)

related: From the Mixed-Up Files of Joan Jett; When you can’t blame the dog