This caper is doomed to failure the moment Harry and Larry think it up. It’s the weekend, and Jessup’s Jewelry store is supposed to have a safe full of cash and diamonds totaling $250,000 in value. At least, that’s the rumor down at the pool hall.

The rumor gets the boys all hyped up. For this job they’ll need a "box man." That’s stupid criminal talk for a "safecracker." A barfly by the name of Duffy claims he’s a veteran "box man," so Harry and Larry hook up with him.

Duffy jumps with joy at the idea of a three-way split. Of course, none of these guys can do long division, or even operate a hand-held calculator, so it’s anybody’s guess how they’ll figure a three-way split.

Early Sunday morning the trio forces open a window at the back of Jessup’s Jewelry store. There’s a problem: Duffy, the "expert" safe man, can’t get the safe open. So the boys decide to take the entire safe with them.

They hotwire a flat-bed truck nearby. There’s not enough space here to describe these clowns loading a 2,000 pound safe onto a truck. It would’ve been a great video entry for "YouTube."

The boys’ luck totally runs out driving down Main Street at 4:00 a.m. with all three town cops still playing poker in the basement at headquarters.

The bang of the flatbed’s wheel hitting a pothole directly in front of the police station brings a temporary halt to the card game. Next, the sound of the safe falling off the truck sends the entire police force running outside. These clowns are trying to push a 2,000 pound safe back onto a stolen flat-bed truck with cops standing there watching.

Monday afternoon the police chief proudly announces to the editor of the town’s weekly newspaper: "Following an intensive investigation, me and my officers arrested a major ring of safecrackers."

When word of the newspaper story reaches the county lockup, Harry, Larry, and Duffy feel like celebrities — "we don’t know nothin’ about no ring of safecrackers, but now we are one," says Larry.

Incidentally, the safe contained a cashier’s check for $39 —nothing more.