Sometimes you look around and you can’t believe how lacking we as a society are in intelligence these days. But I believe in looking at the bright side of things (unless I have to look at the other side for an article), and the bright side is that our criminals are getting less intelligent as well.

When Hashem closes a door, he opens a window.

And then some criminal slams that window on his fingers.

Mostly, I feel like criminals these days are thinking like little kids.

Our first story today, which comes out of England, is headlined, “Police Find Wanted Man Hiding Under a Blanket With His Feet Sticking Out.” And as anyone knows who has played hide and seek with a 3-year-old, that is the first clue that a person might be under that blanket.

Doesn’t he feel a draft?

So I read the article, and it turns out that the man, who was wanted for a string of robberies, wasn’t hiding on his sofa, as one would expect. He was hiding in a closet, behind the rack of clothes. But then because only a kid can hide behind a rack of clothes, as an adult would just end up awkwardly staring into the face of whoever opened the closet, he pulled a blanket over his head in case someone opened the door. Or possibly immediately after?

But either way, his feet were clearly visible, jutting out beneath the clothing. As were most of his legs, because he was wearing shorts.

Either way, he could have been smarter. See, what you want to do in such a situation is put on shoes so your feet kind of blend into the shoes that are already there so that you look like the rest of the closet.

You also maybe put on some pants.

It happens to be that sometimes when you’re backed against a wall you don’t think straight. Take the recent article titled, “Florida Man Tries to Evade Arrest by Cartwheeling Away From Cops.”

Because it’s definitely faster than running. It’s a known fact that cops cannot catch you if you’re doing a cartwheel. They can’t find purchase to grab you. They’re going to grab your feet?

But to be honest, cartwheeling is not the ideal vehicle for speed. If you’re in a race and you’re tired of running, you can’t suddenly start doing cartwheels, and all the other contestants would say, “Wow! Why didn’t we think of that?”

It’s definitely harder to accept water from bystanders that way.

If you think about it, though, whenever cops catch someone, they put them in handcuffs. How are handcuffs supposed to stop the perp from running? They’re not. They’re supposed to stop him from cartwheeling. Though it does actually stop a person from running, if he’s the type who has to swing his arms when he’s running.

Anyway, this man was 40 years old. The news should be that a 40-year-old is doing cartwheels. Like at all.

But not for long. A cop nabbed him. Then he wriggled away and did a cartwheel around the edge of the police car before two other officers went cartwheeling after him in hot pursuit.

Just kidding. They tackled him, like normal people.

And speaking of criminals who basically take themselves out, there’s the recent article out of Oregon titled, “Attempted Gas Thief Lights Own Pants on Fire.”

See, this is why I live in New Jersey, where it’s illegal to pump one’s own gas. If I would have to pump my own gas, nine times out of 10 my pants would somehow end up on fire.

But anyway, this guy wasn’t at a gas station. He was trying to siphon gas from a U-Haul in the middle of the night. As the lieutenant on the scene said, “Something ignited, and the gasoline caught fire. We don’t believe this is what the individual intended.”

We don’t believe it. I mean, he said it wasn’t what he intended, but we don’t believe him, because his pants were on fire.

Of course, not all criminals get taken down so easily. Though they do commit crimes that make you ask why they’re risking their freedom for that kind of payoff.

For example, there’s a family in Oregon, who, according to reports, is distraught after a 50-pound nose sculpture was stolen right off their front porch in a high-stakes game of “Got Your Nose.”

Our guess is someone’s uncle has it.

Basically, according to the family, the father works at an ad agency, and some company had created the sculpture for one of their ads, and it ended up on a junk pile. So when the father brought his three young children to work and told them they could take anything off the pile, all three of them picked the nose.

According to reports, “The kids—ages 5, 7 and 11—had gotten very attached to the nose, and it brought them a lot of joy.” As noses do.

And they would decorate it for holidays. Like if you had this statue, you would dress it up for Purim and clean out the spider webs for Pesach, and put a huge shmek of tabak in front of it on Yom Kippur.

But I mean a Jew can’t have a giant nose on his front porch, because it’s not great for antisemitism.

Also it made their lives easier, because when people said, “Which house are you?” They could say, “We’re the one with the giant nose.”

Why would someone steal a nose? Something smells rotten here.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published eight books and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].