By Stewart Dobson

Things being tough these days, I’ve been thinking of getting a part-time job as a criminal mastermind. The only problem is, like everything else, there has been a lack of openings recently.

The congressional elections aren’t until November, so that’s out, and the classifieds, while offering any number of work-at-home misdemeanor opportunities, have had zero in the evil genius department.

But as they say, opportunities arise when you least expect them and there it was in this week’s news: evidence that the island nation of Cyprus desperately needs a master criminal. I would have to go in as an entry-level kingpin, of course, but I could work my way up.

I say this because just this week officials there successfully recovered a kidnap victim, who, through poor planning on someone’s part, happened to be deceased at the time of his capture. In other words, he was deceased when he was taken and continued to be deceased throughout the ordeal, which apparently wasn’t much of an ordeal to him, being deceased and all.

As the story goes, back in December, a gang – or more likely a bunch of outof work streetcar conductors from the looks of it — stole the body of ex- President Tassos Papadopoulos, a national hero who died a year earlier.

Police said it was a carefully planned crime, which is what they always say when they don’t know who did it. Anyway, the bodysnatchers never delivered a ransom note, never made a phone call or never emailed anything. They just took the former president for no apparent reason and then dropped him off three months later at another location. Considering that he had not been among the living for a year or so, it was probably the smart thing to do.

The point is, though, you can’t kidnap dead people and expect much of a result. It’s not as if you’re in a good bargaining position.

What do you say? “Give us all your money or we’ll … we’ll …

At this point one of the gang members turns to another and says, “Saaaaay, maybe we overlooked something.”

Personally, I disapprove of kidnapping and believe that all kidnappers should rot in prison somewhere in Asia Minor with a cellmate named Bruno the Large.

Having said that, it could be that I don’t have what it takes to be a criminal mastermind and should stick with the things I know. Once I figure out what that is, I’ll be set for life.