One Saturday, John was in the basement watching the end of a football game when his 8-year-old daughter came down to ask when they’d be leaving for the beach. Just another 20 minutes or so, he told her.

“Eventually, the game ended and we went out,” John says. “But when I went to bed that night, I found this note sitting on my pillow. The tragedy of it all, combined with the warning — and offset by the pretty border and the flower — really make for a lovely package.”

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As a Valentine’s Day gift to you all, I present you with this epic love story (which Teddie in Minneapolis discovered pinned to the bulletin board in his apartment building).

Teddie’s love note to this love note: “I love that this person (he? she?) used commas, ellipses, and possibly a semicolon, but no periods. I also love how the all-caps rant in the middle segues into a plea to be Myspace friends again with an offhand ‘anyway.’ Also, what happened to her dad?”

Oh, Charles. You are so SUPER ATTRACTIVE I can hardly help myself. Deseray doesn’t know what’s she missing!

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Writes our anonymous submitter in Minneapolis: “I received this note — and accompanying tater tots — from a co-worker (a balding, 40-year-old male) who had been making false reports about me to our manager and was caught doing so.” (We’re talking hardcore, premeditated sabotage here, so calling himself “a bit of a jerk” was probably “a bit of an understatement.”)

The strangest part, says our submitter? “I do not work in an establishment that serves tater tots.”

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One lazy Sunday, when our anonymous submitter in Minneapolis spotted this bit of graphity on a wooden bridge at a park, “At first I thought it was sweet in a sad kind of way,” he says. But then he kept finding more — “on benches, picnic tables, even trees, and they got progressively more insane.”

And yet, as many questions as these notes raise, I’m sure we can all agree that whatever Keith’s wife did, IT HAD TO BE DONE.

Here, Keith’s wife really shows off her flair for language (which we got a brief glimpse of in her earlier “hot dog” opus.)

Then, evidently quite pleased with herself, Keith’s wife gives herself an encore on another bench.

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“One of my coworkers — normally a calm, even-keeled woman — sits near the door of the office,” writes Ali in Minnesota. “When others come in at night to write reports or look up info, they apparently destroy her desk in the matter of minutes. After a series of coffee cups and chair-lowerings, up went this note. Everyone in the office found it so funny they started adding snarling animals to the note. Ferocious!”

While I can understand this woman’s frustration, one thing I’ll never be able to understand is the logic behind highlighting an entire (caps-locked!) message.

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Just a humble suggestion for 2009…

(Spotted by Charles in Minneapolis)

Spotted by Christina in Minnesota at the Angels & Airwaves merch booth…

Can’t read the smaller writing? here’s a (blurry) close-up:

(As it turns out, Christina says, it was an empty threat.)

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For their daughter’s first birthday, Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt decided it would be fun to throw a casual little backyard get-together at their home in Rochester, Minnesota.

Like the good church-going Minnesotans they are, the Schmidts sent out this e-mail invite to their small-ish congregation of about 200 people, expecting maybe 20 or 30 to stop by for some cake.

Hello St. Luke’s family! Madeleine turns ONE on 8/8/8! To celebrate, she’s hosting her very own backyard tea party on Saturday, August 9th at 1:00 p.m. No gifts necessary – your presence is present enough. We hope you and your family will join us as we celebrate the first of many fun birthdays with our little princess. If you have a moment, please RSVP to so we know how many cucumber sandwiches to make.

Mr. Schmidt happens to be the local TV weatherman, but neither of the Schmidts could have predicted the outraged response they received by mail a few days later (unsigned, with no return address).

Adds Mrs. Schmidt: “We have no clue who sent it, and decided we’d have to laugh it off or go crazy trying to figure it out…so I’m doing my own passive-aggressive act and posting it here.”

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