Never Leave Your Property Unattended By John Briggs Global poverty deepened and respect for private property fell. Epidemics of larceny and burglary swept through wealthy areas and threatened the entire social order. Insurance companies defaulted. Bankruptcy soared. Then overnight one remarkable discovery reversed the whole alarming trend. In national tests researchers confirmed to a high statistical significance that owners who left parts of their bodies to guard their property were immune from theft. Immediately security amputation and defensive evisceration became the rage among the rising and monied classes. Within months of the discovery it was common to find hands or legs standing guard at estates like attack dogs. More than one priceless art collection was secured by its owner's eye mounted conspicuously on ceiling or wall. Working mothers left their breasts at day care centers. Owners of all sorts rushed to the possibility of freedom from the constant anxiety over their possessions. First class vacationers attached dismembered digits to expensive video equipment to keep it from straying. Extracted spleens, lungs or lengths of intestines guarded diamonds and stamp collections. There was hope to employ the new principle using other people's organs and, early on, commodity dealers speculated that the market from third world countries would be rich. But this never worked. Mysteriously, thieves only deferred to body parts containing the owner's actual cells. Failure also greeted the attempt to create spare parts from owners by cloning. For reasons that completely baffled scientists, perpetrators could not be held at bay by symbolic gestures; actual sacrifice was required. Major teaching hospitals began to offer special deluxe surgical plans. Insurance companies cunningly adjusted their rates. As happens with fads, a few customers found that leaving body parts behind with their property hampered their mobility instead of freeing them as it was intended to do. Others simply got carried away and forgot the point. In one notorious case, police found a complete set of sex organs on the hood of a red sports car. Part of the owner's brain was located on the lawn of the mansion containing a state of the art computer lab and entertainment center. A kidney blocked the door of the connoisseur wine cellar. Nothing was missing except the rest of the owner, who didn't return to claim his property. Police put out a missing person's bulletin to no effect. They suspected the man had simply concluded he possessed too much to protect.