Let's just hope the Bait Car doesn't look like mine

When you get a press release about a "Bait Car," you might think it's some new hybrid that runs on minnows. What, they're using fish instead of corn now? Great, I can tell people I'm pleased to get crappie mileage.

But no (sorry about that last line, really), it's a car the police use to snare thieves. Minneapolis has a new one -- a smushed-up useless auto fixed up gratis by Lehman's Garage and Hennepin Tech students and specially fitted with ejector seats that deliver the thieves directly to the workhouse. Maybe. Missed the press conference when they handed it over to the cops.

Which means your correspondent didn't have the chance to see what's hot in bait-car stylings these days. You'd like to know what crooks fancy, eh? If, for example, it was the same as my car, right down to the color and pretentious little Apple decal to indicate religious cult membership, that would be good to know.

It's probably not one of those Smart cars where your knees are touching your earlobes, unless we have gangs of amoral Smurfs roaming the town. Probably not an electric car, because criminals, being rather dim, would think you can't outrun the cops unless you feed the engine more batteries, like shovelfuls of coal. Pour on some D-cells! They're gaining!

So I called up Lehman's, talked to Darrell Amberson -- he's the president -- and asked what the Secret Undercover Bait Car looked like.

But in one of those rare moments of journalistic self-awareness, I stopped and thought, "That's really defeating the purpose of a Secret Crimestopping Car, isn't it?" Let's just say the car is a Fiat Beetle CR-V.

So, what did the keys look like?

OK. Hope I haven't blown anyone's cover. In case you're wondering how it works, I think it's like this. The car sits unattended, perhaps with the keys hanging from the steering column, perhaps with the door unlocked, and maybe a bag with a dollar sign on the passenger side and a cooler in the back that says FROSTY, DELICIOUS BEER. The crook walks by, can't believe his luck, gets in, swears because it's low on gas -- man, you have to do everything yourself these days -- and drives off humming tra-la-la or some merry variant.

Then an exploding purple dye pack goes off, and the driver gets pulled over. He insists that he got the car from a guy named John, don't know his last name -- what, all this purple stuff on my face? It's a birthmark, officer. Yeah, it's on my shirt, too. Happens when I sweat. Hey, that cooler has a liver in it, and I'm dropping it off at the transplant center, so if we could hurry this up before the ice melts? 'Preciate it.

At this point the cops open the cooler, and it's actually a kidney -- gotcha. The crook, dismayed that such an excellent narrative has failed, settles into sullen silence, because it's not fair what they did. Leaving a car there with the keys. It's like they made him take it. What's the word, enderpment? Entrapment? That's it. Just like the time that guy ran into his knife, three times.

Glad to know this is going on, and let us all say a word of thanks for Undercover Hero Car, whose contribution to law and order we will never know.

It does make you wonder if there are other bait-related stings going on, though. Operation Bacchus: a loose grape is carefully placed in the produce section of a grocery store to see if anyone eats it without paying. Suspended after 147 hours of stakeout yielding only one 4-year-old offender, who turned out to have no priors. Operation Blank Slate: Garage doors in troubled neighborhoods freshly painted, enticing taggers who might whip out a can of Krylon. Suspended when a bait car, eluding pursuit, drove right through it.