If you have to walk home from work, First Aid training and a kit can help to make you some temporary friends along the way. If you come across a few young guys looking to make trouble, and they're near a bus bench where there are three women and an injured kid, what do you think will happen if you stop to put some antibiotic ointment and a bandage on the kid?

Not only walking shoes, but if you aren't very familiar with all the possible routes home, you should carry a map that covers the area between work and home, so you don't have to waste time with dead-ends and roads that end up going in the wrong direction.

A bag is better than nothing, but a coat with lots of pockets to carry stuff often doesn't as easily catch the eye of certain types of bottom feeder. This might help out when traveling DART, too.

Your mentioning the crowded car in a snow storm reminded me of something I saw in Los Angeles many years ago. I was following a car filled with more people than one might think a car could hold, and they had some net bags on straps that they had hanging outside the car. A thrift shop belt, pulled out of the bag and run through the handle could be carried the same way, with the strap held by the rolled-up window in winter.

And if you do find yourself afoot, be extremely aware of your surroundings. Sure, most stores will close, but if you're passing the only one that isn't (yet), it could be very useful.

Keep your water stored in containers sized to what YOU can carry. Five- or six-gallon containers weigh 40-50 pounds, not easily or quickly carried by many women.

Sue