Frustrated by fridge thieves who continually ignore your polite (or not-so-polite) requests to keep their paws to themselves? Don’t get mad — get creative! You could end up with something so crazy it might actually work…that is, if it doesn’t totally backfire.

You could go for the classic bluff, with the hopes that you’ll inspire just enough self-doubt to encourage the thief to go for the next lunch bag over.

Or you could hold out hope that the thief in question is either very lazy, very stupid…

…or that he or she appreciates your twisted sense of humor enough to take mercy on your pathetic self.

Or you could just bring this for lunch. (Somehow, I think this would have been safe, even without the note.)

Thanks to Theresa in Birmingham, Alabama; Stacey in Manchester, New Hampshire; Alissa in Memphis, Tennessee; and Marianne in Dublin, Ireland for submitting!

related: That’s breastmilk!

I was really hoping this would die before I’d get around to posting about it, but more than four months later, it appears the  “Imma Let You Finish” meme is still chuggin’ along. I’m gonna chalk it up to end-of-the-year insta-nostalgia and, well, let it finish.

P.S. Speaking of Tillamook cheddar, Doug Fir in Portland makes the best mac & cheese OF ALL TIME!

related: Somebody’s on Team Taylor Swift

Presenting — in honor of British Cheese Week — three approaches to cheese thievery:

1) Play dumb.

2) Get tough.

3) Oh, F it.

related: The right to bear fruit

Edward says this sign was posted on every floor and inside all the elevators at the hotel that headquartered UCLA’s study abroad program in Granada, Spain last semester.

Can you blame them? I mean, really — what a waste of perfectly good manchego!

As this example from Winston-Salem, N.C. shows: hell hath no fury like a lactose-loving office worker.

The thief might be depending on the fridge’s contents as a source of food, but mercy? Don’t count on it.

“My co-workers and I were in love with this note when we found it attached to the office refrigerator,” says Brian in Cleveland. “We wanted a copy, but the woman frightened us. So we came up with an elaborate scheme. One co-worker walked to the kitchen carrying a folder. She grabbed the note, stuffed it inside, and walked down the hallway. She handed it to another co-worker and stood watch. That co-worker raced to give it to me, who rapidly made a copy. Then we reversed the sequence. Within two minutes, the note was back on the fridge, and we were in heaven.”

So worth the effort though, right?