In every issue of this fine rag the Weekly Volcano's hack team of wannabe journalists tackle some of the most laughable criminal acts that have recently happened in our area. Then - if we're doing our job - we write about those crimes in a way that makes you chuckle, or at the very least gives you something to think about other than the fact you spent Valentine's Day with a parakeet.

This week's Ragnet takes us to Lacey, where crime is just an everyday value menu.

Enjoy. - Weekly Volcano

One hates to romanticize crime or violence of any sort, but is it wrong for the Crime Desk to feel nostalgic about the criminals of 2001?

Remember the anthrax attacks in the mail? Remember when the cast of Saturday Night Live, and guest host Drew Barrymore, had to be evacuated from 30 Rock? Then, in 2002, remember when four dozen snow-camo'ed Chechen terrorists stormed a Moscow cinema and held the audience hostage? The world was besieged by super-villains!

Ah, but those were the good old days of bad guys.

Fast-forward nine or 10 years to the present. Argh, True Believers, it's like going from a dynamic Jim Lee splash panel from Uncanny X-Men to a phoned-in Family Circus. Nowadays the average perp doesn't even qualify as a villain, let alone a supervillain; he's just a lunkheaded, skeevy underachiever who can't get up the gumption to invent a working freeze gun. Pathetic.

Which brings us to the Wendy's on Sleater-Kinney and an ongoing story in The News Tribune. It seems on Friday, Feb. 4, around 4:30 p.m., an adolescent doofus slouched into Wendy's carrying a note - not a firearm, mind you, but a note. Reports fail to specify whether the suspect waited in line anxiously behind a family of six and that nice lady who always orders a broccoli and cheese potato and a water.

Upon arrival at the counter, the suspect handed the doubtlessly unimpressed cashier the note, which said the suspect was carrying a firearm. The suspect soon left the store with "an undisclosed amount of cash" ... on foot.

Let us pause here for just a moment to consider this nimrod's master plan.

First, he could've robbed a bank, or a credit card company, or Donald Trump. He could've ransomed a grade school or the president or the Eiffel Tower for one beellion dollars.

But no. He robbed a Wendy's. This was not an ambitious guy.

Second, he didn't even wait until after the dinner rush. He actually robbed the establishment just as banks were getting ready to close, meaning the daily deposit had already been made.

Third, no gun.

Fourth, the note, which means he was too damn lazy to memorize his own robbery speech.

Fifth, no getaway car. No screeching tires, no plastic Nixon mask, no snow camos. Nothin'. As Mr. Strickland would say: "Slacker!"

It gets worse. The suspect actually departed the scene by catching a city bus. City buses, by the way, have surveillance cameras. Say "cheeseburger!"

Lacey police identified the suspect immediately and arrested the alleged subvillain four days later. He was still on foot, by the way. - Dave Thomas, Juicy Old-Fashioned Crime Correspondent