12 Problems Absolutely Everyone Has Experienced

    As told by random penguins.

    Alanna Okun
    by Alanna Okun

    BuzzFeed Staff

    1. Mary Laura Philpott draws penguins in random situations.

    Mary Laura Philpott

    Like dealing with a ghosting friend.

    "I started the Tumblr 'The Random Penguins' when Penguin Books and Random House merged," she told BuzzFeed, "because I was tickled by the idea of the phrase 'random penguin.'" AS SHOULD WE ALL BE. Now, the drawings are available as a book.

    2. Situations like: "When you order wine and pancakes and ice cream and one egg roll [from room service]..."

    Mary Laura Philpott

    "...and then when you’re finished, you slide your room service tray down the hall just a bit so it looks like it’s outside someone else’s room." You know, highly relatable stuff.

    3. Or when there's a bee in the car.

    Mary Laura Philpott

    4. Or the horrible curse known as "rainy day hair."

    Mary Laura Philpott

    5. "At a certain point, I realized I was drawing situations that happened to me or my friends and colleagues," she said.

    Mary Laura Philpott

    "I'd hear myself or someone else go, 'Ugh, this is such a pain,' and then immediately I'd think, 'Oh, come on,' — most of the things I consider 'problems' on a day to day basis aren't that big a deal. So I'd take a frustrating or embarrassing situation and draw it happening to a penguin instead of a person, and all of a sudden, it would be funny. It's impossible not to giggle at a penguin screwing up a work email or getting stuck in a dress."

    6. "If you can laugh at the absurd little things," — like Phone Face — "then you can save your emotional energy for the stuff that really matters."

    Mary Laura Philpott

    Phone Face is that well-known phenomenon "when someone you don't want to talk to walks by, so you pretend to be engrossed in something on your phone, like they can't see you behind the little rectangle you're holding in front of your face."

    7. We've all dealt with Innuendo Bob.

    Mary Laura Philpott

    AKA "that guy at work who’d be kind of funny if he weren’t going overboard with the sexual innuendos all the time. Like, yeah, Bob, we get it – it’s a bagel, it has a hole in it."

    8. And friendship.

    Mary Laura Philpott

    "Life: Sometimes you’re the one who pukes in the bathtub, and sometimes you’re the one who fetches the mop."

    9. And laundry.

    Mary Laura Philpott

    "Math: What’s more costly – the time it would take to iron through two seasons of outfits or just purchasing new outfits and pushing this basket out the window?"

    10. Sometimes you have to deal with Pinterest fails.

    Mary Laura Philpott

    "Watched an online tutorial about how to do a smoky eye. Nailed it."

    11. And sometimes you just can't help but break it down in public.

    Mary Laura Philpott

    You know, "when you’re standing there at the gas station or in Target or in a bar and 'When Doves Cry' by Prince comes on and you bust a move and try to make eye contact with the strangers around you so they’ll do they same but they won’t and then you have that split second where you have to decide if you’re committed enough to keep dancing by yourself.

    12. Luckily, these random penguins totally get you.

    Mary Laura Philpott

    "They're very human," Philpott said. "Except, of course, that they're birds."

    Penguins With People Problems is available now.

    Mary Laura Philpott