If I wanted to keep all my stuff in my pockets, I wouldn't have brought my bag (lame)

The BBQ Pit
1

OK, this is petty and lame, but so what? That’s the kind of mood I’m in. And have been in since Saturday. Let me explain.

Saturday night, my date and I head out to Unity to meet his friend and go dancing. We cheerfully paid the $7 cover and $1.50 coat check (insert grumbling here about how I remember when Sky didn’t have any cover at all; those were great evenings too, with the drag show during Ciel Mon Mardi and everything, and the boys were less snotty then too). I surrender my coat, get my ticket and am heading in, when I’m brusquely ordered to check my bag.

Let’s talk about my bag for a second. It’s a small, cute, black messenger bag. It went with my outfit. I had my wallet, keys, cell phone, change purse, gum, combs, and a hat should I have a hair incident and the combs prove unavailing. I keep my shit in my bag so it doesn’t ruin the line of my pants. I’ve brought it into clubs numerous times.

I say I have no intention of checking my bag, because it has my cellphone and wallet (I don’t mention the other stuff) and I’m not leaving those at the coat check.

I’m told to put them in my pockets, and check my bag.

Look, if I wanted to put that shit in my pockets, I’d have done it before and I wouldn’t have brought the bag! But as it happens, I don’t like going out feeling like a fucking kangaroo, bulging out all over with my money and phone down my pants. I was perfectly willing to let them look inside my bag if they had wanted to, but nooooo.

They persist. My date has already gone in. I sigh and put my shit in my pockets and turn in my bag. Ugly bulges result, and I’m parted from my change purse, gum, comb, and hat for the rest of the evening.

They’re lucky I wasn’t wearing my skinny jeans, because those look downright bad with stuff in my pockets, and honey, there would have been words said.

Naturally, what’s the first thing I see when I go in? A bunch of women with big honking purses, which naturally, nobody would have dreamt of asking them to check.

Whatever.

2

I’m sorry; feel bad that I don’t know this by now, but…are you male or female?

3

Matt is a fella.

Matt, did you make the argument at the coat check about purses? Or were you too peeved for it to cross your mind?

You’d think at a gay club (it was a gay club, right?) they’d see more dudes with bags and it wouldn’t be a big deal to let guys bring bags if women were allowed to bring bags in.

Totally not cool :frowning:

4

This is sexism, straight up. I’d be pissed off too.

Also, on a personal note, I think guys look dorky with their pockets all filled up with stuff. Man-purses for everyone!

5

He’s a young man.

Hey matt_mcl, maybe next time you could arrange for a female-type friend to carry your bag in for you, and turn it over when you’re all inside.

I mean, bad on the club for having and enforcing such a stupid rule, but sometimes it’s all about getting around obstacles to where you want to be.

Or maybe next time you could just show that club your back and spend your money elsewhere.

6

Yeah, but it was $7 Canadian. That’s pretty much like getting in for free.

What possible rationale could they have for taking your bag? Were they afraid that you might steal the dance floor?

7

They suck! Once I saw people with purses, I’d have marched back to the coat check/purse corral and pitched my bitch. That’s just wrong.

8

OK, now that I’m straight on that (ha), then yes, that’s pretty bad of them. Short-sighted, too, if it’s a club frequented by gay and straight.

9

Wow, I would have thought those jokes went out when we hit parity :wink:

Maybe they were afraid I’d cause a panic! at the disco.

10

Hey, I know, it’s an easy joke and was true for so long, but nowadays, the Canadian dollar is actually worth more than the U.S. dollar. $1 CAN = $1.02 U.S.

11

I don’t care how strong the Canadian dollar gets. I will never pass up an opportunity to make fun of that loony stuff.

12

Next time, I would bring a huge-ass empty bag, damgle it over your real bag, and then let them check that. It will make them feel useful.

Or even better, put your bag inside the huge one, and when they ask to check it, go though the whole thing and then at the last minute say- oh- wait, I need something out of there. Then take out your smaller bag and put it on.

13

I don’t know how guys get by without bags, though they are annoying on the dance floor, dancing around a pile of leather bags and all that.

Wasn’t there a story out of Montreal about a gay (male) bar refusing to serve women a while ago? I can understand clubs not wanting anyone having bags, and making concessions for women and their ever-present cache of tampons, but surely they have a metal detector and/or a flash light to detect guns, drugs, etc. (and anyway, you don’t need a bag to carry a baggie).

14

And now you’ve gone and lost all my sympathy.

15

Yeah - if it doesn’t fold, it clearly isn’t real money.

16

I have a few pairs of pants that include a cellphone pocket just above and behind the back of my knee. That works great.

17

Next time, can’t you just tell them you don’t have a bag? When they point, look offended and say, “But that’s my purse!”

In law school (many moons ago), when we were doing false imprisonment in torts class (which generally involved retail store hypos), the professor always used to trump the hypo by saying – “But what if I’m carrying a purse? Doesn’t that automatically make me strange?” And then he’d pick up his messenger bag and carry it around the front of the classroom while waiting for the gunners to rally.

Then one day, a classmate said, “But Professor P_____, all the men in this class carry something like a purse. It’s not weird – it’s just what men do now.”

So the man-purse is in, baby!

18

As it happens, that’s exactly what I said (although in French - “Mais c’est ma sacoche !”)

19

Matt, I am sorry for you, that is sexism and you probably ought to think about suing them. Or something.

But I think you’re nuts for preferring to carry a purse/bag/whatever instead of having plenty of pockets for things. Do you really like having another item to worry about? Figuring out where to hang it so it will be out of the way while you drink, dance, and whatever?

But yeah. Another item of gender inequality. They should have let you keep it. Although consider: The women MUST have purses, because their clothes probably don’t have pockets at all, or if they have them, they’re too shallow to put anything in or badly located (breast pocket on ladies shirt? ha ha).

Also, I have never understood places that won’t let you take in backpacks, but will let you take in purses. I have a purse that converts to a backpack. If it’s zipped one way it’s okay, the other way it’s contraband. Makes no sense.

20

I generally prefer my bag because that way all my stuff is in one place, where I can just grab it when I go out instead of hunting all over creation and forgetting a quarter of it.

In this case, as mentioned, I like it because it doesn’t ruin the line of my pants. This is especially important in the case of my tight jeans – not only does it make it look stupid, but it’s way harder to get my cellphone/wallet out of the pocket of a tight pair of jeans than it is to get it out of a bag.

I really don’t have a problem with it when dancing, and if it should happen that I want to dance especially vigorously, I just stick it on a table where I can keep an eye on it for the duration of the song.