Anyone who thinks the jar will be accessible from this point on to ‘make good’ is probably wrong. I bet the jar is in her room or in the cupboard from now on.
I like the idea of the ransom note and the meeting for lunch, except you buy lunch on your own dime and give back the twenty then.
Depending on your sense of humor and your relationship with this person you can still pull it off. If you give in now you face the likely chance of never speaking to this person again since she won’t be able to trust you, unless your explanation comes off as extremely sincere.
If it were me, I’d have trouble getting over the “You stole $20 from me” part. A lot of trouble. The joke is unsalvageable, and the friendship may be, too. Pretty much any joke that involves stealing money from someone is doomed from the start.
Better fess up. If she hadn’t noticed for a while, it could have been a good joke, but she’s obviously more observant - she’s just not joke-butt material.
Put back the $20, with a friend of the same denomination. Anonymously, if you can.
Don’t try it again, and don’t bring it up. If caught or confronted again, confess.
Yeah, all he has to do is get invited back to her house and sneak into the room where she’s hidden the money jar… Chrissy and Mr. Furley can keep her distracted. What could possibly go wrong?
I agree with jjimm - you are pretty screwed on fixing this, Otto, unless this is a friend that you’ve had for a long time. If this is more some co-worker from a crummy job that you’ve just gotten to know then I can’t imagine her thinking anything other than “I sure misjudged that jerk”. Trying to draw this out with some kind of ransom joke would be a horrible/piss her off more idea, jeez. You frigging took money, not some goofy little memento.
This is unsalvageable. Unless maybe you do something like cut off one of your ears and mail it to her with the $20 wrapped around it and a note that says “I heard you lost some money.”
You should arrange to meet to talk about it, and when she arrives, you should grab her purse and run away.
“Salvageable” implies that it was funny at one time. Get on your knees and blame drunken stupidity.
oh my god under no circumstances should you fess up. Okay morally bankrupt blah blah blah, but I have never confessed to something and not regretted it. Youre going to have to get that money back in there. Deny til you die. She’ll have the money back and won’t think youre a shithead. seriously. dont tell her. having less friends wouldn’t help me sleep at night.
Sorry but I’m not really buying the “joke” thing. It sounds an awful lot like you stole some money, hoping she wouldn’t notice, maybe even telling yourself you would replace it, then after she did notice, you came up with this lame “it was a joke” excuse which you decided to float here to see if anybody would buy it.
Could I have you all wrong? Maybe, but don’t be surprised if your friend just sees your actions as theft, pure and simple.
If you really intended just to mess with her, why not hide the 20 somewhere else in the house. Taking it home with you was definitely a dubious choice.
ETA, if you confess, just admit you stole it. Don’t bother with the"practical joke" story. You’ve already lied about taking it once, so I doubt she’d believe you at this point. The best you can do is come clean, give her the money back, apologize and go on your way.
lobstermobster’s right. No good can come from confession. If she has a brain she won’t believe you. I’m not sure I do, and I still have all my money.
Maybe the twenty is on vacation and will start sending back photos…
I hope this works out for you. I will take you at your word as to your intentions, but leaving an extra $20 first would have been the way to go. Still not funny, but it shouldn’t ruin a friendship. I wouldn’t take $20 from my spouse without first getting permission.
Let us know how you handle this and the outcome.
Ah. This cynical take should have occured to me. I still say fess up and pay her back, but maybe the suggestion of showing her this thread was a real dumb idea on my part.
If I were you, I’d just anonymously mail her $40 with a note explaining “I took it because I was planning to pull a prank. I was wrong and I’m sorry”.
That’s the only way I can see for getting out of this mess.
this is actually a really really good idea. seriously. don’t tell her you did it.
Tell her and beg for forgiveness. But it’s just not likely she’s going to believe you. I can only think of one friend I would believe that explanation from. Anyone else? Fucker tried to steal from me.
Get rid of the evidence. Take the $20 and go buy a dildo. Then go home and insert it in your ass.
Repeat until you understand the analogy.
Seriously, I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t tell your friend. If you want to remain friends just remember to pick up the check whenever you guys hang out an astronomically increased amount of time to make up for the guilt you’ve just promised yourself.
Ever see the movie Amelie? Start taking pictures of the $20 from various interesting locales, and emailing her.
Or, do like they did on Ugly Betty and start taking hostage pictures of the horrible things you’re doing to the $20, and emailing them to her.
Hope she doesn’t call the cops and have your IP traced. Send the pictures from Starbucks.
I disagree.
Otto is not an idiot. He could have posted here that he heard this story from a friend, even from a friend he trusts implictly, if he merely wanted to gauge the reaction of a bunch of people to his theft-cover-up story without implicating himself.
Now, he may have been acting like a half-drunk idiot when he conceived this plan, and I mean no disrespect here; I rather imagine he’d be the first to agree. But if he were a repentant thief, he’d have chosen a different route to put the story in front of the SDMB. I think he’s honest about his quasi-conceived plan and the aftermath.
He’s still screwed, of course, with her.
The old “only a stupid criminal would do that! My client isn’t stupid!” defense. How well does that usually go over in court. lol.
It could be that he posed the question as himself rather than “it happened to a friend” because he wanted the benefit of the doubt that his rep here brings him. If he had posed his question about a friend I bet he wouldn’t have gotten any suggestions other than “Bullshit, the guy stole the money! Let him get caught/turn him in”. It would also be a like a diary entry he could later point to if he got caught. “I know I didn’t fess up, but see it was a joke all along. The very next day I said that!”
lobstermobster gave the most cynical but realistic advice. Anonymously give back the money to assuage your guilt and never speak of it again. You never did say how many people were in the apartment that night - I wouldn’t be surprised if she already strongly suspects it was you, Otto.