The Old Shoe-Bag Shell-Game Trick

[DWise1]

I've recovered enough (see whining thread) to return to my door duties for my WCS teacher's Wed. night venue. At the end of class, a woman discovered that someone had taken her shoe bag by mistake. He had not taken the last class, but left after having sat and watched it half-way through. Her bag had all her keys in it. In a 30-minute adventure which included getting her to stop panicking and making a short chain of phone calls to discover the next phone number to call, we finally got the guy's number and another 30 minutes later he returned so that they could exchange shoe bags.

What had happened is that they had both done what a lot of other people do. They got a black carrying bag when they bought their shoes from this one popular dance shoe store and they use that as their shoe bag. Which means that their shoe bag is identical to the shoe bags of nearly half the people at the same venue. I'm surprised this kind of incident doesn't happen all the time.


What is your experience with people grabbing the wrong shoe bag? What have you done to prevent such incidents? What have you seen others do?

[suburbaknght]

Keep a distinctive bag. Failing that, place my street shoes on or in the dance bag. People tend to notice the wrong shoes.

[wooh]

I had an apparently senile old lady take my shoe bag. I politely tried to tell her it was mine. She got all in a huff saying i was trying to steal her shoes. I said m'am, I know it's mine, i put my bandaid wrappers in there (that week I'd gotten some bad blisters, so had triple bandaid covered a few spots, so LOTS of wrappers and the trash can wasn't nearby, so I'd put them in my bag to trash later on.) She looks in the bag, starts pulling out the wrappers saying, "These are MY BANDAIDS." She just kept getting more agitated and so I finally just gave up, figuring if she wanted to claim my trash, then she could have the bag. So basically not only did I have my shoe bag stolen by a cute old lady, but I got yelled at too!

[DWise1]

Well, my own shoe bag is different from everybody else's. When my Tupperware lunch pail broke, that product had been discontinued so my then-wife bought a set of three nylon bags. All have the same design, but in three different sizes. So the small one is my lunch bag, the large one is carry-on luggage, and the medium one is my shoe bag. And each one is exactly the right size for the job.

While waiting in the parking lot, we started kicking a few ideas around. One that I mentioned is what we use at the airport where half the world has bought that same set of luggage from CostCo: tie a distinctive and garishly colorful doo-dad to your luggage. My ex had a big plastic shamrock tied to hers (even though she was only Irish by marriage). I use a red "Swing Cruzers" tag that we got on my first dance cruise. Something different and sufficiently unique so that you'll know which one to grab and others hopefully will know to not grab.

The victim of the bag switch decided upon draping her bag in ultra-pink and sparkles so that no man would even want to acknowledge its existence, let alone get anywhere near it.

[drejenpha]

After having my newer pair of standard shoes walk away at a competition I put duct tape on my shoe bags and wrote my name on it... also have my name written on the bag with black sharpie as added proof that it is mine. When I have it I set my garment bag on top of my empty shoe bag but people pushing stuff aside separates them sometimes.

[Joe]

I carry mine in a backpack. There are a million different backpack designs out there, so I've never seen mine with anyone else.

[Peaches]

I put my street shoes in my shoe bag. Sometimes I'll put it in a backpack or overly large purse. But luckily my shoe bags tend to be pretty colorful, which cuts down on the oddds of someone else having the same ones.

[SPratt74]

I carry my shoes in a tote bag. While I've been meaning to get a different kind of carrying case, most of the other dancers know that's my bag. I do this, because more than one person buys from the same company I buy from. We all have different shoes, but the shoe bags are the same. So, this is my way to keep mine separate. It's worked so far. ;)

[samina]

i use distinctive bags for my dance gear...has never been a problem.

[Wyndstorm Huntress]

After class one day, a fellow student of mine discovered that his perfectly matching pair of street shoes now consisted of his own right shoe and someone else's left shoe. I guess someone else put on my friend's left shoe thinking it was his and walked out the door. Surely the culprit should've noticed something was off - when we looked at my friend's new left shoe, we realized it was a good size smaller than what my friend wore.

I don't think my friend ever got his original left shoe back.

I realize, not a shoe bag story, but hopefully entertaining. As for me, my shoe bag is very distinctive, though sadly not big enough for me to put my street shoes in. Fortunately, my street shoes are also very distinctive, but then again, not many people walk around wearing boating shoes all the time.

[fascination]

MQ actually bought my shoe bag and it is a bag for golf shoes so it doesn't look like anyone elses....and, since my dad works at a golf course, I can vouch for the terrific variety there in general...absent that option, I recomment folks do the sorts of things that people do with their luggage....either securley tie some bright colored yarn or bow to the handle or put stickers or some other very secure distinguishing factors onto the bag....dh has a black travel bag and it has his initials in stickers on various spots on the bag

[DWise1]

I had always called the process "uglifying it": making it ugly so that nobody would want to take it.

For example, my first shoe bag was a plastic grocery bag. And my first dance shoes were a old pair of black walking shoes (glorified sneakers) that I sueded. Years later I still have both the shoes and the bag.

[tanya_the_dancer]

My husband had that sort of thing happen with a suitcase at an airport. Fortunately, they were able to sort it out quickly by paging the owner of the suitcase who (again, fortunately) did not leave the airport yet.

[samina]

fwiw, yoga bags make great shoe bags...they drape nicely over your shoulder and discreetly over a chair at the studio or club, and they come in a gazillion designs. I have a red chinese silkish one I love for taking out to clubs or socials.

[DancingMommy]

Sparkly glitter hearts all over my bag do the trick for me.