On an average day, there’s not much about receipts that’s particularly exciting. At best, they serve a practical purpose—proof of payment, a tax write-off, or a backup for returns.
But sometimes, if you check the fine print, you’ll find more than just numbers. These people did, and they discovered messages so clever, funny, or unexpected that they had to share them online. Here are some of the best ones.
#1 Today At My Work, The Creator Of Phineas And Ferb Came To Dine In And Left Drawings Of His Work
Image credits: Naive_Cabinet7922
#2 Asked Clerk For The Most Decadent Cupcake Bc I Got A Job Rejection - This Note Was On The Receipt
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#3 Local Donut Shop Includes Mitch Hedberg's Philosophy On Receipts
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These days, life is full of conveniences that make everything easier. We don’t have to leave the house to shop—just a few clicks, and whatever we need arrives at our doorstep. The same goes for food, where we can even choose to avoid interacting with the delivery person entirely. And many of us choose to work from home, skipping the daily commute and all the small talk that comes with it.
#4 This Guy Sat In My Section Tonight And Left A Note On The Back Of His Receipt
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#5 I Wanted To Write A Ya Book About Bullying Since My Experiences In Grade School. My Cashier Job Wouldn't Let Me Use A Notebook, So I Started Writing It On Receipts
This year, I finally published my novel
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#6 Took My Kitchen Knives To Be Sharpened And They Gave Me A Band-Aid With My Receipt
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While all of that is helpful (and honestly, a dream for anyone with social anxiety), it also takes a lot of humanity out of everyday interactions. That’s why little personal touches, like a handwritten note or a hidden message on something as simple as a receipt, can turn an otherwise mundane experience into something special.
#7 I Was Wondering Why The Last Table Of My Shift Was Taking So Long To Sign His Receipt
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#8 Our Waiter Doodled On Our Receipts At Denny’s Today
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#9 Once Again Bored At Work And Drew All Of Ichiban’s Dragon Koi That I Could Fit On A Piece Of Receipt Paper
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One place where receipts are practically everywhere is in restaurants. So, Bored Panda reached out to Humbat Mamedov, a waiter at Street Pizza in Riga, Latvia—one of Europe’s top 50 pizzerias—to find out how often receipts are used as a form of communication.
“All the time,” Humbat says. However, rather than being meant for guests, most of these messages are actually exchanged between restaurant staff.
#10 My Mother-In-Law Passed Unexpectedly Yesterday Morning. Her And My Wife Were Supposed To Go Get Haircuts Together Soon So My Wife Went To Get One Just To Get Out Of The House And When She Went To Pay They Told Her Someone Else Had Paid For It And Left This Note On The Back Of The Receipt
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#11 I've Never Seen A Receipt With A Joke On It Before
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#12 My Receipt For The Clinic Had A Sudoku To Help Pass The Time
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When waiters take orders, customers often have specific requests. The easiest way to pass these modifications along to the kitchen is through the printed order slip. A quick note, and boom, it’s done.
“Leaving messages is generally very easy,” Humbat explains. “The text goes directly to the intended station and usually doesn’t appear on the final receipt for the guest, which is very convenient. Unfortunately, not all establishments have this feature.”
#13 I Work In A Cafe That Caters To Kids. This Mom Wrote This Note On Her Receipt And My Heart Melted
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#14 Bought 2 Lifesavers At CVS And The Receipt Was Almost As Long As My Truck Bed
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#15 True Romance
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The type of message varies based on a guest’s specific needs. Many places have preset templates for common modifications, like meat doneness or soup portions. But when requests are more detailed, custom messages become unavoidable.
#16 My Girlfriend Had Questions When She Saw My Receipt For Hotel Transylvania 3
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#17 Look What I Found, Manager Says He Has Found This In Our Receipt Printer Every Morning!
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#18 This Place Charged Me $2.25 Just Out Of Spite
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Since kitchens are often located in the basement or separated from the dining area, these notes can be incredibly useful. “They let the waiter include specific comments about a guest, and sometimes, they’re also a great way to amuse the kitchen staff,” Humbat adds.
“For example, at one place I worked, we had a regular customer who insisted that everything on the plate be served separately—no matter what the dish was—and without salt or pepper. So we’d simply write ‘Guest Name - Salt Pepper’ to signal the kitchen that they had arrived.”
#19 There Is A Waiver On My Receipt For Takeout Shawarma
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#20 The Coupon On My Receipt Is Good For 129 Years
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#21 I Found Three Four-Leaded Clovers; When I Bought Tape To Preserve Them, The Total Was $7.77
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Of course, not all messages are sweet, but some are undeniably funny. If a customer is being rude or difficult, waiters might vent a little in the order notes to the kitchen or even joke about the situation. And when a guest requests an over-the-top modification, not for allergies, but just because they feel like it, staff will sometimes add an apology to the kitchen for the extra hassle.
#22 I Was Adopted In 1965 And My Parents Saved The Receipt
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#23 Those CVS Receipts Are Finally Paying Off
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#24 This Is How The Gas Pump Printed My Receipt
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But for every difficult customer, there are plenty of kind ones too. Some even leave heartwarming messages on their receipts or napkins. As a Ukrainian, Humbat has received messages of support from fellow Ukrainian guests.
“One note read, ‘Thank you for a piece of Ukraine in Riga. Good luck, and Glory to Ukraine!’” he recalls. “Another time, someone left me a children’s coloring book with ‘thank you’ written inside in Polish, which I happen to understand a little.”
#25 My Friend's Bar Bill
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#26 My Wendy’s Receipt Has An ASCII Art Burger
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#27 Receipt Labels Lactose-Free Milk As ‘Hipster Milk’ In A Norwegian Cafeteria
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So if there’s one thing to take away from this, besides a reason to smile, it’s that small gestures matter. A simple note can turn an ordinary moment into something meaningful, brighten someone’s day, or even become a memory they’ll treasure later.
#28 The Book I Bought Today Had Its Original Receipt
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#29 This Receipt Paper I Got From An ATM At A Dispensary Doubles As Rolling Paper
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#30 Daughter Asked The Costco Guy To Draw A Mermaid When He Checked Our Receipt. He Handed It Back And Muttered An Apology To My Wife
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#31 It's Always Something At Fuel Station
Came in this morning and one of our pumps has been very slowly printing receipt paper all night with code or something on it. It was still printing when I saw it so I removed the paper and put a cone out in front of it. Pump is down. It's always something.
Morning shift is never boring I guess.
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#32 My Receipt Came With A Nutritional Breakdown
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#33 Cashier Receipts From Last 5 Days That Customers Didn't Take With Them. What A Waste
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#34 Cute
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#35 Account Balances From People That Left Their Receipts On Top Of An ATM
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#36 My Receipt For Buying One Bottle Of Vegetable Oil At CVS (100 Lb Dog For Scale)
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#37 When People Do Things Like This
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#38 This Sushi Restaurant Adds Love To Their Receipts
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#39 You're Not The Only Artist In That Bar
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#40 This Was Written On The Back Of A Receipt By Some Little Kid. Made Me Feel All Warm And Fuzzy
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#41 Absolutely Insane Oopsie Today
Okay so I went to print the check out for a table - I look at the total on the screen and it says $103. I print it out and it suddenly becomes $45k
So we have happy hour buttons on our computer, that only display the correct prices during certain times. If you try to get a HH drink past 6 the price says $1005. I worked here long enough to know this, and it was still happy hour when it was printed. Even my manager was like ??? Because he had to edit my ticket earlier and had seen the total.
I guess I accidentally pushed the to -go button and since happy hour items can’t be taken to go they removed all the discounts. Needless to say we all had a very good laugh about it.
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#42 Recently Listened To “Never Give Up” Again And Got This Fortune On My Receipt At Breakfast.. I Now Have The Sudden Urge To Fly A Plane And/Or Fight A Bear
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#43 This Restaurant Forgot To Fill Out Their Store Information On Their Receipts
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#44 The “Suggested Tips” Section On The Receipt From The Hipster Bar We Were Just At
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#45 Receipt At An Already Overpriced Restaurant. When I Asked The Waiter He Just Shrugged And Said 'Oh Yeah, We Need To Fix That'
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#46 At Work A Girl Was Wearing A Tpwk Hoodie So We Talked & After She Paid For Her Ice Cream She Asked For A Pen, Wrote On Her Receipt & Gave It To Me. It Said, “If U Ever Want To Kiss In The Kitchen Like It’s A Dance Floor, Call Me.” The Way Harry Styles May Have Found Me A Wife
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#47 This Receipt From My Local Pizza Place Displays The Restaurant's Account Balance For Some Reason
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#48 Receipt With Division Hint
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#49 I Got A Receipt Baked Into My Pizza
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#50 Receipts In The Philippines Are Typically Long. 56 Items = 39.5in/100cm
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#51 This Is The Receipt The ATM Gave Me
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#52 The Way The Morning Dew Has Sat On The Letters Of This Receipt
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#53 Did Self-Checkout And Got A Blank Receipt
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#54 The Deliveroo Order Of Shame
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#55 My Grocery Receipt Says “Turn Your Eyes To Jesus”
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#56 My Walmart Receipt Is Printed On Target Receipt Paper
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#57 Perfectly Preserved 1998 Walmart Receipt
Sharing what I found at work last week. I do data entry and was tasked with cleaning out old files and found this gem.
Peep the Oreo stacking contest.
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#58 Thela W At The Kc, Mo Linwood Location Makes Our Day Every Time We End Up In Her Line. It Took Her Less Than 15 Seconds. Cheers
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#59 First Fancy Dinner In God Knows When And Got Charged An Economic Recovery Fee?? Im Not Made Of Money Either Cmon
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#60 Dunkin Donuts Charges An “Employee Wellness” Fee
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#61 Cute
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#62 I Found A Perfectly Preserved Taco Bell Receipt From 1999 In A Library Book I Was Scanning
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#63 America The Fee- Soon They’ll Charge For Eating The Food Per Bite
Restaurants don’t even hide it anymore. I asked the guy what’s this ‘to go fee’ and he stated it’s for the containers the food goes in. Cheap styrofoam…(which they never did before) Then as he stared at the pen signing the paper, I gave him a 5$ tip and that was being generous.
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#64 The Way This Test Receipt Printed
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#65 I’ve Never Seen A Receipt That Long
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#66 I've Ever Seen Such A Fuss Over Burgers. They Paid $95 Aud For This
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#67 The Receipt For The Loan My Parents Took Out To Buy A Computer In 1992
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#68 I'm A Waitress Who Just Recently Started Going To Therapy For The First Time In My Life... Today I Had A Therapy Session Right Before My Shift Began, And A Customer Left Me This Note Written On The Back Of Their Receipt
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#69 A Customer Left This On My Coworker's Receipt. I’m Sorry, But How Insecure Does This Guy Feel?
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#70 Found This On The Back Of An ATM Receipt
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#71 That's So Cute
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#72 9 Years Ago, I Found This Sonic Receipt In My Car That Had Become Transparent
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#73 Bought A Used Book, Found The Original Receipt From 1995
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#74 Receipt I Found Outside My Dining Hall
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#75 Found In A Grocery Store On The Back Of A Receipt. Kinda Scared
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#76 Found On The Back Of A Receipt, Drifting On The Sidewalk In Berlin
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#77 What Is A Bird Board?
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#78 That’s Awesome
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#79 I Just Finished My Food And Was About To Throw The Receipt Out Until I Realised What My Order Number Was
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#80 My Wife Bought A Plant At Canadian Tire And This Was What It Showed Up As On The Receipt
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#81 Found Old Taco Bell Receipt From '97
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#82 My Chipotle Order Was Printed On Aldo Receipt Paper
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#83 To Itemize A Butcher’s Receipt
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#84 This Lidl Receipt Is Really Trying Hard Congratulating Me On The Win
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#85 My McDonald's Receipt Looks Like A Fallout Hacking Screen
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#86 The Receipt My Friends And I Received At A Diner. We Can’t Decipher Hardly Any Of It, Including Many Of The Numbers
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#87 My Receipt Had A “Living Wage” Fee
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#88 Da F Is A "Honest To Goodness Fee" ?
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#89 Back Of A Receipt At Doctors Office
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#90 My Sis-In-Laws Receipts From Sept. Double Numbers, All In One Day! How Weird Is That? Is Such Thing Ever A Sign From The Universe Or Just A Rare Coincidence?
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#91 They Gave Me A Receipt That Says I Didn’t Buy Nothin
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#92 This Receipt From Lunch With My Boyfriend
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#93 Lyle The Receipt Checker Drew A Perfect Self Portrait For Me Today
Didn’t know what he was drawing himself, made me laugh out loud when he gave it to me!
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#94 That's So Cute What
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