Prague Pickpockets Going Broke During Lockdown

(With a Nod to The Onion)

Ever since the coronavirus took over the world, businesses have closed, people either work from home or lose their jobs, and we wonder if this is the next human reset button from that queen bitch Mother Nature. The COVID thang has impacted all creatures great and small. But nobody has been hit harder than the unseen masses of Prague workers who rely on the most personal of contact: the pickpocket.

Touch and Go

Prague has been hit especially hard during this crisis as it produces nothing other than tourism and marginally driveable cars. But the industry hit hardest by this crisis is the age old profession of pick-pocketing. Where there are tourists, there are pickpockets. And Prague is a capital of both. When the waiters aren't padding your bill, taxis will. And if you still have money left on your way back to your hotel, you can rest assured that a pickpocket will relieve you of whatever you have left.

Until now. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and nothing is more desperate than social distancing. You can't hug, shake hands, or even bump fists without a icky feeling of potential contagion. And you most definitely cannot pick anyone's pocket.

Just like the swarthy, smarmy pimps posing as taxi drivers exist to rip off tourists, the seedy underbelly of Prague life is propped up by the humble pickpocket. This artful dodger is firmly entrenched in the very fabric of Prague life, so much so that all the guidebooks are filled with warnings about pickpockets.

And the pickpockets pay no mind at all. Cops gave them a wink and a pass, and Czech laws are so fucktarded that a cop must actually witness a pickpocket taking your wallet from you before they will step in. That's because cops are paid off, but that's a different story.

Thief Trade in Danger

But now the pickpockets are seriously worried. How are they going to make a livelihood in the age of social distancing? Also, once the Czech borders slammed shut tighter than a frog's asshole (and that shit's watertight), no tourist targets were anywhere to be found.

Speaking with Honza, a self-proclaimed pickpocket, he was vexed. How was he going to milk the sacred cash cow of tourists when there were no tourists?

"I have no idea what I'm gonna do now," Honza wondered. "This fucking country has been closed for nearly 3 months. THREE MONTHS WITH NO TOURISTS! How am I going to eat when there are no pockets to pick?!? These local Czechs are so broke they can't pay attention, so where will I get my income? There's not exactly an unemployment option for people in my line of work!"

Honza (not his real name) is not even a gypsy. Czechs blame gypsies for all the crime in the Czech Republic, but that's just a smoke screen. Especially when it comes to pickpocketing – because gypsies are so damn bad at it. A pair of loud mouthed gypsy kids approaching a tourist will not be getting anywhere near their pockets. They can only produce results at the very bottom of the pickpocket food chain – on the night trams, preying on passed out drunks.

"I trained for making widgets," Honza explained, "but the fuckin' country turned from Commieville to Mickey D's overnight and the widget factory closed. Who knew nobody would buy widgets any more? Am I supposed to flip McBurgers now? No. Fucking. Way!"

"So I did the only thing a sensible Czech would do: I learned a new trade. Sliding your hand inside a target's pocket is the ultimate rush – and payday! Hell-LO! And it's dead easy in Prague. Trams crammed with loud Americans and Brits staring at their phones nonstop. They're not even paying attention to their pockets! Candy from a baby, I tell you – muahahahaha!"

But now they've got signs everywhere: Wear a mask. Stay 2 meters apart. Avoid unnecessary contact. How is Honza and the mighty army of black market petty thieves going to survive this crisis? Prague taxi drivers have flooded the social media forums complaining about how they haven't been able to rob a single tourist for months. And the scourge of Uber. And Czech waiters can no longer pad the bills of drunk tourists.

Survival of the Fittest

How will Czechia survive this crisis? How will thieves make a living? Fortunately for Czech parasites, there is always a way to make money for the lucky few who got free flats and entire buildings under post-Communist restitution. Even when the entire Czech economy shut down for 3 months, landlords will still get their drop of blood from their tenant hosts. The Czech government has decreed that those who could not pay their rent during the coronavirus crisis could not be evicted from their flats. But they would be in debt to their landlord indefinitely.

So if you want to survive in post-viral Prague, you'd better buy a block of flats (if you have a spare million bucks), or learn a trade that will never go out of style in Prague: the gentle art of pickpocketing.