An Open Letter to a Phone Thief

An Open Letter to a Phone Thief

Hello, you petty criminal, you,

I moved down here in 2008, and I've been lucky. I've only been robbed twice. At uni, I always had the most terrible phone. I'd go on nights out, and all of my friends would be robbed blind - iPhones, Blackberries, GONE - and somehow, my shitty little Samsung would always stay put, untouched by pricks like you. I honestly think you'd worm your slimy, thieving hands into my bag, check out my £10 phone, and put it straight back in there, disgusted at my lack of self respect. "What kind of woman," you'd say to yourself, "owns a brick of a phone like this?!" It was brilliant. I'd drop it on the floor when I was hammered, and the next day I'd get a house phone call from the bar manager; my phone had been handed in. Amazing! The one time some blind fool did steal it, the insurance excess was £10. £10!!! I know, right?!

Oh SILLY, SILLY me! I got cocky, didn't I, once I graduated. I was working myself to the bone in three desperate, shitty jobs, sitting in the corner of an art gallery (yay!), boring myself to death in a club cloakroom (double yay!) and being mercilessly perved on whilst I worked thirteen hour shifts in a City bar (OMG TRIPLE YAY!). I thought - if anyone deserves a lovely new phone, it's me. I've had my nice little Samsung that nobody wants to steal for like... four years. Time to shake shit up. Time to get a TOUCHSCREEN.

And that's where you come in. Friday night, I was standing at the bar with my friend, Morgan. We were dancing to what is arguably Lauryn's greatest song (Doo Wop: That Thing) and generally loving our lives, and then you decided to whip open my bag, and rob me of my phone. You arsehole. You don't think you're an arsehole? Really? You're just doing your crooked, disgusting job, and that doesn't make you an arsehole? Alright, bear with me while I tell you, step by step, why you are an arsehole.

Firstly, the wallpaper on my phone is of a smiling baby. Now, I'm fully aware that I have not yet met anyone stupid enough to impregnate me, and that the baby belongs to my friend, Georgina. But you don't know that. For all a prick like you knows, that beautiful, chuckling baby could quite easily be my child. Which means you're OK to steal the phone of a potentially nursing mother, without a second thought. What if my babydaddy needs to speak to me urgently? What if Junior needs feeding, and nothing but mama's milk will do? You really don't care. Let the baby starve. You've stolen this stupid bitch's phone and bitches who are stupid enough to get their phones stolen shouldn't be allowed to have children anyway. Right?

Secondly, you don't know me. Or you didn't, until you read everything I just said. I work hard to pay my phone bill every month. Harder than a thief like you will ever understand. If you ever meet anyone who deserved to be subjected to your robbing treatment less than I did, please do let me know.

Thirdly, you stole from a girl. Actually, strike that - from at least three girls, cause I met two others at that bar on Friday who'd been robbed as well. And that makes me so angry. I'm no feminist, but let me just tell you that you are repugnant.

You - yes, you - you condone rape and murder. Know why? Because, even when I'm walking down streets that I know like the back of my hand, I sometimes still get scared. I can never predict who'll be walking along the road at 6.30am. I don't know if the man I cross on the street on my way home on Saturday morning has a knife, or a conviction for sexual assault. You know what always, always makes me feel better, though? Even when the buses have stopped running, and I'm scared that getting halfway home might be the last thing I do, I always know that I can call one of my two best friends, either Poppie or Marlee, and that I can tell them where I am. Even if all I say is, 'I'll be home in five minutes,' they know that if I'm not, they need to send out a search party.

On Friday night, you took that safety away from me - the capacity for me to call someone that loves me when there's a shady character holding a half-smashed bottle walking towards me, or to text my mum when I'm terrified after being flashed by someone hung like Ron Jeremy on the Kingsland Road. Round of applause for you, you utter prick; you not only rob women in the slyest, most rotten of ways, but you also take away their support network and ability to feel safe for days.

So next time you're out in Shoreditch, and you want to steal phones and pretend like you're a big man, pick on someone your own size, you pig. Oh, and when you finally get caught and sent to prison for years of robbing anything that moves, I hope karma catches up with you, and bad shit happens to you in the showers. You'll wish, first of all, that you'd never dropped the soap; and second, that you had a phone to call your mummy with. What goes around.

'Karma, karma, karma comes back to you hard' - Lauryn Hill (1998) Lost Ones, Ruffhouse, Columbia.

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