This seems like a conversation you should probably have in person, no? I mean…ouch.

related: Dear Alex, GET OUT.

I don’t really want to know what “cigarette ashes” is supposed to mean in this context…

…but hey, look what I found on the Internets!

related: Your “Brown Friends”

Our anonymous submitter in Berkeley found this display in the bathroom she shares with her other roommates. “I hasten to add that the Imodium is not mine and the note is not directed at me,” she says. “Admittedly, the probable owner of said Imodium does need to get her shit together.”

So…perhaps the Vaseline was intended to help the the note-writing roommate metaphorically remove the stick up her ass?

related: (Untitled) Broken Glass

Sydney spotted this bizarrely self-satisfied bit of scripture in a friend’s downtown Berkeley apartment building.

Says Sydney: “I personally think the Bible verse adds a nice touch of guilt, but it’s the emoticon smileys that really put the whole thing over the top for me.”

(Also…what exactly has the note-writer been doing while holding those keys ransom for the past month? Formatting footnotes?)

related: What would Jesus do for a Klondike bar?

“In the staff area of our library, there is a single-stall, co-ed bathroom,” says our anonymous submitter in Berkeley, California. Everyone got along okay, more or less, until recently, when one of the library’s male employees “left quite a mess behind.” A female coworker responded with the note below.

And then, well, the lines were drawn.

related: dude kinda has a point

Sarah was taking a little stroll in Berkeley, California last December when she saw a house that clearly belonged to the “more is more” school of holiday decorating.

You know the type: “Giant candy canes, red bows, lights, even one of those life-sized plastic snow globes that blows confetti snow all around inside — all in a yard about the width of the sidewalk I was walking on,” Sarah says. “This note was tacked onto the fence, above an empty space in the row of candy canes.”

Adds Sarah: “Poor little boy. Now he’s not going to know it’s Christmas.”

related: a holiday wish

Sure, it’d be easier and quicker to just clean it up. But the modern passive-aggressive (like Katey in Berkeley’s ex-roommate) can’t pass up the opportunity to make a point.

A common variation on the Van der Rohe approach, as documented below by Sam in Dallas, is the so-called “Reverse Magritte.”

Meanwhile, post-modern passive-aggressives (like this New York office-worker below) can’t resist throwing some irony into the mix, intentional or not.

More recently, passive-aggressives have begun to show the influence of the burgeoning neo-pop movement. Our anonymous submitter in Houston, for example, designed the original stamp below for use in his work. “I am an engineer and we have to mark up technical drawings for manufacture,” he explains, in his artist’s statement. “It gets used at least twice a day.”

The bleeding-edge of passive-aggressive note-writing, however, lies on the west coast, where Rebecca in San Francisco says that in the past, “We’ve had an ongoing series of notes left in the office kitchen — usually of the ‘your mother doesn’t work here’ or ‘there is no such thing as the coffee fairy’ variety.” The Koons-inspired piece currently on display in the office breakroom, however, makes its point with no words at all.

related: Why-fi

With finals and thesis deadlines coming up, stress levels among grad students at UC-Berkeley have been running high (which means attention to the finer points of, say, apostrophe use, are running low). And now there’s a lunch thief on the loose!

Sadly, says our submitter, the note’s multi-pronged approach (guilt, threats, helpful advice) seems to have had no effect; the lunch thief remains at large. The next course of action? “We’re considering planting laxative-laced desserts.”

related: It must have been a pretty big bite

Lisa in Berkeley says she was doing laundry in her dorm building when someone pointed out this amazing note to her. “According to that person, who knew the note-poster through a friend, ‘The towels were actually nice. They were from Kohl’s or something.’”

Lisa says the note has since been taken down. “I guess either an RA got to it, or someone got a beating.”