“When I first moved to Chicago,” says Mike, “my grandfather told me about parking in the winter. One would dig out a spot and insert a chair, reserving the spot for your trouble.” One of his neighbors, it seems, didn’t get the benefit of such grandfatherly wisdom.

Neither, apparently, did Chris…who made the mistake of parking in an empty space outside his friend’s house in Chicago for few hours. When he got home, he found this note affixed to his mirror with glue.

And of course, Chicago isn’t the only city that takes its snow-shoveling etiquette seriously.

Just ask Anna in New Jersey…

Or Brooke in Indianapolis…

Or Amy in Washington, D.C…

Or Larry in Silver Spring, Maryland…

Or Kristin in Pittsburgh…

Olivia in Albany…

Or Chris in Boston…where they’re always keepin’ it classy.

related: Boston, a place for friends

“I live in a condominium building that is popular with the elderly,” writes our submitter from the Chicagoland area. Recently, he says, the building’s board of managers put copies of this note in everyone’s mailboxes and posted it in the lobby (so guests wouldn’t be spared the details, either.)

Adds our submitter: “I don’t know what’s more inappropriate: losing control of your bowels in the hallway or distributing this memo to all the residents.”

Meanwhile in depressing economic news, Sara in Kansas City, Missouri says her company’s last Christmas party was held in — wait for it — the rec center of a local retirement home. Revelers who stopped by the restroom were greeted with this cheerful reminder of OMG SHOOT ME NOW.

related: Dr. Freud’s Salon Scatologica

Writes Michael in Chicago: “Apparently, some of our neighbors had a problem with us being naked in our apartment.” Without knowing any other details of this situation, I’d have to say:

a) “Be more private with yourself” is a phrase I am going to try to work into future conversations whenever possible.

b) Michael, while I 100% support your right to bare all in your own home…curtains still might be a worthwhile investment.

Meanwhile, Scott in Seattle found this note taped to the front door of his apartment building. “Needless to say,” Scott adds, the next time he saw the large bald man from the third floor in the building’s laundry room, “it was a touch awkward.”

related: get your “nozzle” off my “hose”

extra credit: man arrested for being naked in his own home [WTOP news]

This note — spotted by Erik in a break room at Northwestern‘s Medill School of Journalism — takes me back to my days as a bright-eyed young reporter cheerfully slaving away at my college daily, where the grizzled old alumni “mentors” working at the Times or the Globe always seemed to have the same advice:  if we were smart, we’d get the hell out of journalism before it was too late. (“Ha ha,” we’d laugh, awkwardly.) It’s somehow reassuring to know that kids today (“kids today!”) are still blithely ignoring their elders to pursue a degree that just might be the most unnecessary in higher education.

But seriously now. At this point, you’re like, “What is this biotch rambling on about? Doesn’t she know I don’t read text longer than 140 characters at a time? Show me the picture, dammit!” And that, young j-schoolers, is the topic of next week’s lecture.

related: the silverware segregationist

extra credit: the twitter explosion [american journalism review]

Jen says this liquor store in Chicago’s Lincoln Square is completely plastered with notes like these, but — vexingly enough — the guy at the register was such a hawk she was only able to snap a few photos. Happily, I’d say Jen scored a hat trick for insolence with these three.

related: Free markets, free people, free papers

I’d say this whiteboard notice — from a student at Northwestern University in Evanston, illinois — is neck-and-neck with this for “most unnecessary and inappropriate analogy ever.”

‘Plex, by the way, refers to (in the words of our anonymous submitter, the note’s recipient) a Northwestern residence hall, Foster Walker Complex, “that’s full of disinterested seniors and minorities.”

(Sigh)

Change is on the way?

related: Just be glad you don’t know what’s in the coffee

Ashley in Chicago says her roommates are the king and queen of passive-aggressive notes. (“If they ever found this site, they’d think it was a self help group,” she says.) The latest example:

Ashley’s still fuming over this one. “I mean, come on. Just throw it away yourself! You’re probably exerting more energy writing the email and stressing about it,” she says. “And why do you think I’ve been spending so much time at my boyfriend’s anyway?”

Attention: corporate emergency in the Chicagoland area!

Meanwhile, in Seattle…

Adds our anonymous submitter, “All the glassware for all departments is washed by the poor lab slaves at least twice a day, and then promptly returned to the shelves. How much glassware are they using that they notice if a beaker or two went missing?”