Seattle police tell us an online ad posted on Craigslist by a man offering to give away a toddler in an essay contest was, in fact, bogus.

The ad—supposedly posted by a couple who had grown weary of their four-year-old child Gunnar—requested that anyone interested in taking on a "knee-high food processor/complaint factory" send a 250-word essay stating why they "would be a fit parent" for the four-year-old.

An Orting, WA man spotted the ad on Craigslist in late May and reported it to police.

Seattle's Internet Crimes Against Children unit investigated the case as possible criminal mistreatment of a child, and, after obtaining a search warrant for the posting, contacted the man behind the ad.

The suspect in the case—who, according to police, was "old enough to know better"—told detectives the post was just a prank.