Emmet in Phoenix says that at his office, “people donate magazines for others to peruse, but sometimes they grow legs and disappear.” Emmet recently found this (totally metal) back-and-forth about the issue…on the issues themselves.

related: The Hot Topic at this Year’s Warped Tour

extra credit: These Babies Are Totally Metal [youtube]

…because if there’s one thing you can do to help the starving children of Africa, it’s to eat a cupcake. (Sigh.)

That said, nobody wants the damn thing after you’ve taken a bite out of it. Don’t try to assuage your guilt/food issues by telling yourself that someone else will eat it.

related: The Nibbler — the plague of office breakrooms everywhere

extra credit: Charity Navigator’s top-rated charities providing aid to victims of famine and drought in Africa

It’s a PAN miracle! After reaching a hilltop on a holiday hike, Mary in Phoenix found this decorated desert tree.

Upon closer inspection, Mary noticed this (only slightly cranky) message from “Merry Terry.”

Altogether now, everyone…

related: Thank You Terry!

Various religious-themed notes have been popping up all over our submitter’s workplace in Phoenix, Arizona. “Several co-workers have found these messages in their offices, stuck in between papers, and written on whiteboards,” she says, but so far no one has come forward to claim authorship.

One of most recent notes showed up in the office kitchen one morning.

Another note turned up beside it sometime after lunch.

related: There you go, bringing Him into it again.

Our submitter in Tucson, Arizona was a little perplexed by the sign hanging up in newly-assigned cubicle, but didn’t think much of it. When he finally got around to asking his bosses about it, they somewhat cryptically responded that the last person to work in that cubicle “had a problem with change.”

(It’s unclear who made the decision that a change of job was in order for that particular ex-employee.)

Meanwhile, Bethany in Bakersfield, California still isn’t quite sure what to make of this note, which she found on her desk one morning at work. (“Did someone start to write a message and get distracted two words in?” Or am I living my life in such a way that they simply can’t handle it any longer?”)

related: A little bit of psycho-therapy

Laura in Tempe, Arizona found this note posted in the laundry room of her apartment complex, where it’s common knowledge that if you wash your clothes late at night, you’d best grab as they’re done.

Now, I realize not everyone will appreciate the subtlety of this kind of crazy. And sure, notes about stolen laundry aren’t all that uncommon. But for some reason, the peculiar syntax and semi-twisted tone of this one really got me. English majors, can we get a close reading here?

related: Panty raid!

One day, says Nancy in Arizona, her dad was getting in his car during his lunch break from Lowe’s (the home-improvement big-box store), when he found this note tucked into his door frame.

“He was surprised,” Nancy says, but instead of taking the contrarian approach, dear old Dad decided to humor the person and move his car one spot over. At the end of the day, he actually got a glimpse of the notewriter — a “rather old lady” who works as the store’s phone operator.

“We spent a lot of time discussing her possible reasons for wanting that specific parking spot back,” Nancy says — especially given that it doesn’t seem to have any particular advantage over the other 500 or so spots in the lot — but in the end, they just had to laugh.

related: I’m gonna say this in the nicest way possible: don’t park in my spot.

In one of my clearest memories of first grade, I distinctly remember my teacher telling us, on the first day of school, that the bathroom in the back of the classroom was only for emergencies. For non-emergencies, we’d have to wait until lunchtime. In my six-year-old mind, however, “emergency” meant only one thing: “throwing up.”  And so, when I had to go, I held it. And held it. Until…well, I wasn’t holding it anymore.

That’s right: It actually took wetting my pants for me to learn that the word “emergency” means very different things to different people — a concept some people apparently still haven’t figured out.

It’s unclear, for example, what might constitute a “citrus emergency” at this Pleasanton, California optometrist’s office. (Perhaps a masochistic mandarin peeling itself?)

You might think people would be a little more precise in their language on a military base. At Arizona’s Fort Huachuca, you’d only be about half right.

At Gustavo’s new office building in Seattle, it only took about a week — and about a bazillion false alarms— before someone decided a little clarification was necessary. (Sorta sounds like something you’d expect from a classroom of first-graders, no?)

Meanwhile, Andrew in Cirencester, England only noticed this sign after pushing open one of his office’s alarmed fire doors (triggering a sudden and unforeseen occurrence — i.e., ear-shattering noise).

related: Gee, thanks for the clarification

Uh, you got me. The employees at the Arizona Blockbuster store where the manager posted this sign were similarly stumped. Writes our submitter: “I’m all for recycling, but I have to wonder who’s forcing her to run a 100k marathon…not to mention what that has to do with recycling paper.”

related: Al Gore knows