Call The Cops! loves to laugh at stupid criminals, but some things just aren’t funny anymore. Right now I’m thinking about the 35-year-old guy out in Colorado, who decided to play a trick on his landlord at the Rocky Mountain High apartments.

For the convenience of their residents, apartment managers have a drop box in the common area for rent checks. Rent is due the first of the month.

Among the envelopes in the box around the first of this month, an employee finds an envelope with an off-white, powdery substance leaking from it.

Based on what he’s been seeing on television and hearing on the radio, this employee promptly calls 911 to report his findings. Then he orders everybody to evacuate the office building. Good plan! Although the probability of the substance actually being anthrax is small, why take chances?

Police arrive minutes later and begin questioning people at the apartment complex. Members of the office staff point to Wilbur, who lives in unit #409. Wilbur had already confessed to several staffers that he put Tide washing detergent in a blank envelope "as a joke."

Nobody is laughing at Wilbur’s joke. It isn’t funny, given prevailing conditions these days. By now Wilbur knows he has screwed up. He walks over to a police captain and blurts out what amounts to a spontaneous confession: "I put Tide in the envelope to see what the office staff would do," he says. "The stuff is harmless; it’s only soap; you can test it," says Wilbur.

"Don’t worry, we will," says the cop who handcuffs Wilbur and puts him into the back seat of a patrol car. Wilbur is charged with multiple counts of "menacing and harassment," all misdemeanor crimes in the state of Colorado.

Wilbur may also be charged with the federal crime of "terrorism" which is many times more serious than local charges. You can also be certain he’ll serve time in prison for his folly.

Our thanks to staff writer Marilyn Robinson of the Denver Post, who first reported this incident.