There’s a universal truth that applies to just about all large sporting arenas, which is that anything a woman carries that isn’t a backpack is generally acknowledged to be a purse. I’m pretty sure the rule is that if you’re a woman and it goes over your shoulder, it’s a purse. In fact, it has always been my theory that a woman could probably take a backpack, put both straps over one arm, say it’s a purse and get away with it.

See, for whatever reason, backpacks – no matter how small or how empty – are not allowed inside of most sporting arenas.  Purses, conversely -no matter how large or overstuffed – generally are.  I think that men are afraid of them, afraid of what fate they might meet should they try to challenge a woman’s right to be carrying it.

Consequently, I’ve never paid much mind to the kind of bag I did or didn’t bring to a sporting event. Last Friday’s game at the stadium was no exception, and I attempted to walk enter the park holding this bag.  Let’s leave aside the fact that it’s covered in adorable kittens — I’m pretty sure that most people who come to crowded stadiums to inflict harm on innocent people don’t carry bags with kittens on them. The bottom line is that, according to the rules as they are and always have been, this bag is purse. How do we know this? Because I was carrying it over my shoulder and I’m a woman. So imagine my surprise when I was stopped entering the stadium and informed that my purse was not, in fact, a purse, but a bag. Moreover, it was too big to bring to carry into the game.

I tried reasoning with the guard — I opened the purse and let him look inside so that he could see that its sole contents were a cell phone and a wallet.  (I will own that I brought an unnecessarily large purse for what I was carrying, but that’s how it happens sometimes.)  I folded it up until it was about an eighth its original size and said, “Look, I can carry this thing in with one hand.”  The guard was unmoved.

I figured that no one’s beyond reason, and I tried to persuade him to let me put the bag inside my friend’s bag. He looked at me and responded coldly, “No bags in bags.”

I said, “Excuse me?”  I figured I had to have misheard him since the thing it sounded like he said was so impossibly stupid.

He repeated himself, somewhat annoyed, “No bags in bags. It’s a policy.”

Oh, ok.  It’s a policy. And one that makes sense. If my bag was a detonating device that was programmed to go off when it made contact with another bag.

(As my friend Jane commented, one should never underestimate the power of the old empty kitten purse bomb.)

I had a brief conversation with the guy about what exactly I was meant to do short of throw away my kitten purse and walk in with my wallet and cell phone in my hand.  My options were less than satisfactory. I was either supposed to run back to the car I hadn’t driven to the game and put it in there or pay $7 to check it the bowling alley across the street.

I went with option C) Walk two gates down, fold up my empty kitten purse bomb, stick it under my arm and proceed into the stadium without a problem.

In the meantime, my friends had gotten ahead of me, and had no idea what might have happened to detain me for so long. Jane started to walk outside of the stadium to see what had happened. She was apparently stopped and informed that all exits are final. Jane tried to explain that she didn’t want to “exit.” She simply wanted to walk five feet to make sure to find her friend and that she would gladly stay within viewing distance.  Like the “No Bags in Bags” rule, the “All Exits Final” policy was evidently hard and fast.

Jane was already none to pleased since she had been forced to throw away a perfectly good bottle of water, having opened it and taken a sip. (At this she declared that she officially liked the old stadium better than the new one.)

We finally all made it in, empty kitten purse bomb and less one bottle of water, and found each other at the seats. I have been to the stadium a number of times this year, but this time things felt decidedly more fascist.  It seemed to be the consensus.

Midway through our discussion, the man in this photo ordered a beer from a vendor. This wouldn’t be notable but for the fact that this man was asked to show ID.  Presumably, along with the strict “All Exits Final” policy and “No Bags in Bags” rule, there’s a hard, it’s been written that beer vendors should ask anyone ordering alcohol for identification.  Fine.  Fair enough.  But wouldn’t logic dictate that unless this man shares DNA with Benjamin Button, you’re only going to humiliate yourself by asking him for his ID? I’m sorry, but when a man that old starts getting asked for ID, I don’t know what you call that besides fascism.

It sure as hell ain’t old stadium, I’ll tell you that.  But when Jorge hit that crazy home run to lead off the eighth and Mo decided to take a seat and stop warming up in the pen since he was no longer needed for the save, it felt like old times.