Joe is an elementary school teacher in Long Beach, California. On the last day of summer school, he got this goodbye letter from one of his students. “It was really cute and sweet,” Joe says. “However, she does mention in the card that I am ‘not that smart.’ I asked her why she thought that, and apparently it’s because she saw me ask another teacher a question about grammar. Hilarious.”

Brandy in Citrus Heights, California received a note with a similar mixed message from her then-six-year-old daughter, who’s now 14. Really, I’m just glad just this letter wasn’t signed “love, your girlfriend.” Because that would not be cute.

related: Mommy, I love you sometimes!!!!

extra credit: So Nice, So Smart [iLike]

“New York Times reader” didn’t become a right-wing synonym for “elitist” out of nowhere. As the newspaper itself proclaims, “Times readers are a well-educated group. They expect sophisticated coverage and literate prose.”

But how does that literate sophistication hold up when the Gray Lady goes a-missin’? Well, if “self-aggrandizing smugness” counts as sophistication and “almost free of basic spelling and grammar errors” counts as “literate”  — remarkably well, actually!  (That whole “i before e” thing is pretty tricky, after all.)

Exhibit a) From Alan in Washington, DC:

Exhibit b) From an anonymous submitter in Lawrence, Kansas:

Exhibit c) From Elizabeth in Queens:

Unimpressed? Well, for the sake of comparison, let’s take a look at some notes by readers of less “sophisticated” newspapers. Like, say, the Washington Post:

Adds Robin in DC: “This person has also posted several other notes making various threats, including a promise to fill their paper with feces and glitter.”

As much as I appreciate that imagery, it’s actually New York’s other status-symbol-paper that inspires my favorite note of this genre — primarily because it so perfectly captures the essence of the Patrick Bateman/Gordon Gekko-worshipping tool I imagine the writer to be.

Our submitter, meanwhile, found the note more puzzling than anything else. Writes Danielle: “What kind of boring person steals the Wall Street Journal?”

And that, dear readers, is a question for another day.

related: Free markets, free people, free papers

extra credit: Dear Neighbors, Read This Note! [nytimes.com]

Shortly after moving to Columbus, Ohio, Julie received a welcome-wagon visit from her new neighbors…in the form of a post-it note stuck to the side of her motorcycle. Her bike, which was parked on the public city street across from her house, had apparently disrupted the neighborhood’s unofficial parking “regimin.”

“I complied with the rules of their little microcosm,” Julie says, “but I also turned the note into an overhead, which was a real gold mine for the rhetoric class I was teaching at Ohio State.”

Adds Julie: “Incidentally, when parked perpendicularly, a motorcycle uses roughly 2.5 feet of street.”

related:  I shoveled this spot. IT’S MINE.

Chad and Cassie might want to be careful what they wish for…lest someone be tempted to “return” something they didn’t actually borrow first.

(Thanks to Travis in Austin and anonymous in Boise for submitting.)

related: Does your roommate have note-writing diarrhea?

Hey, look — it’s almost the entire 12-step program in one note! I especially like the abridged version: “To the idiot who stole: the world is your oyster.”

related: Is your washroom breeding Bolsheviks?

While sorting through some old papers, Christina in Natick, Massachusetts was about to throw away this childhood note she had written to her Mom (and Dad too!), when her husband, Aaron, intervened. (Apparently no amount of coaxing could tease out exactly what horrible sin Paul committed, so feel free to speculate wildly.)

P.S. Hope you enjoyed it, you know.

related: Be sure to say goodbye forever

This seems like a reasonable enough request to ask of your housemates…except for the fact that, as Jason explains, “Our water is full of assorted minerals (and who knows what else), and drips from the ceiling above the bathtub all day.”

So those yellow stains in the tub? Yeah, not urine. Just evidence of a bathtub in need of some serious scrubbing. (And those pink stains on the water cooler? Probably not lipstick.)

But if your shower smells like piss…well, it’s gonna be hard to blame that on hard water.

related: Who takes a crap in the shower?!

For the folks who found yesterday’s “do not come in” post a bit too “kids say the darndest things” precious, I figured I’d better even things out with a look at what happens when those neglected jealous siblings grow up…and get armed.

Exhibit A, spotted by Heather at a gas station in Gastonia, North Carolina

Exhibit B, which Steve found pinned to a tree in Athens, Ohio (where, while visiting friends, he stumbled upon the property of the local necrophiliac farmer)

And lastly, Exhibit C, spotted by Dex outside a “fairly dilapidated” house in Raleigh, North Carolina

related: The right to bear fruit