A Hobby Lobby employee asked Joe to leave his Maxpedition Versipack–I was going to call it a man purse, but it’s so aggressively utilitarian that I think it gets a pass–at the front counter before he shopped in the store. That’s unfriendly but not that weird, considering the loss-prevention strategies some stores use. However, they let his wife continue with the exact same bag attached to her hip, I guess because women can’t steal.

Me and my wife were going to the mountains and we each carry a Maxpedition Versi Pack, size small. We carry water, a sandwich and our wallets. We stopped at Hobby Lobby [in Colorado] and when I got a few feet in the door a cashier stops me. She advises me that I cannot take my bag through the store, that it will have to be left at the register until we have finished our shopping. She advises that I would, of course, be allowed to take my wallet out and carry it with me. She does not require that my wife give up her identical bag.

Throughout the store we see women that have purses and bags that are twice the size of the bags that we carry, which logically would make it that much easier to steal items. When we get done and go through the register, we go through the one that the same cashier is at. My wife pays for her items, and we stand and I wait to get my bag back. She starts ringing up the next person in line. I clear my throat and she asks if there was anything else? My wife, already annoyed, says yes can he get his bag back. She then had to look for where she had put my bag before returning it to me.

I would say that we spend about $100 a month at Hobby Lobby when we go to [this] store and never have an issue. It seems that it was discrimination that made me feel the thief, when I have never and would never steal.

Yeah, you say that, but you’re a dude. It could happen.

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