The Star Tribune is reporting that there’s been a rash of phone thefts in Minneapolis. Specifically, the article is entitled “Police warn of brazen smartphone thefts in Minneapolis”.

Brazen. That just sounds so… daring.

When you read the article you find out that the brazen part is just dudes running by and taking the phones while people use them but when I read “brazen” I just imagine a young woman at a street corner checking her facebook. Suddenly, a caped man in a domino mask swings by on a rope, snatching the phone from her hands and landing on the roof of the one story building in front of her. The mysterious man crouches down and bellows “I am truly sorry, madame but I have liberated your Samsung Galaxy from you and all I have to offer in return is this.” He pulls a single rose out from under his cape, lifts it to his nose and inhales deeply before dropping it down into her open hands and running off, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. His silhouette slowly fading into the backdrop of the city skyline. Later, when the police officer is getting his report from her he’ll ask if the masked man stole anything other than her phone. She’ll smell the rose, look to the rooftops and say with a sigh “my heart”.

That’s brazen.

The article lists some handy police tips to keeping your phone from being stolen such as –

• Pay attention to your surroundings.

• Call 911 (but they took my phone!) and be available to give police a suspect description.

• Record your serial number and provide it for a police report. This will increase the chances that the phone will be recovered.

• Install or activate a function to find your phone if it’s lost or stolen.

While these are certainly valuable tips I feel like there’s more you can be doing to protect your phone from brazen thieves.

• Create an app for your phone that causes the battery to overheat and explode on a specific voice command. If you can’t have it, nobody will! I would totally spend 1.99 on that app. Tell me you wouldn’t buy that app and have to replace your phone twice in the first month because you just had to show everybody at that party how it worked.

• Have a really shitty phone. I have the T Mobile Comet. A year ago it was $10 with a contract extension. Last week I found one at the bottom of my box of Kix. Sure, my GPS will randomly slip in some racist sentiments while giving me directions and the twitter feed actually prints out on a thin strip of paper like those old stock tickers but if it gets stolen I can just make a new one out of a potato and some wires.

• Get a wallet chain for your phone. Most of these thefts are happening in hipster infested uptown so it will totally be cool until everybody else is doing it.

• Keep your phone at home. It’s one of your most important and useful possessions so leaving it at home is really the safest option. You could even mount it to a wall for easy access and tether it to a line so it won’t get lost.

it seriously took me like twenty minutes in Gimp to make this horrible abortion of an image. Some people just aren't cut out for graphic design.

If your phone does get stolen, just swipe one from somebody near you. Apparently it’s really easy.