TIFU while walking to the theatre with my wife, brother in law has his fiancee.

We were going to see the UK comic Ross Noble, so the mood was right for talking shit. Literally.

So while walking to the theatre in the sleepy little town of Ipswich (UK) that we live in we were commenting about how there doesn’t seem to be as much dog shit on the pavements as there used to be, which is a good thing obviously. Then while we walked and talked we everyone quite naturally started telling tales of dog poo related mishaps they’ve had in the past.

I listened quietly while everyone recounted fairly mundane tales of stepping in dog shit and complaints about how horrible it is to have to clear up. I waited for everyone to tell their own little tale, knowing that I had a killer story on the subject. My wife has heard the story before so prompted me to tell it (we’re like a double act!). So here it is…

Back when I was a teenager I grew up in a small Suffolk village that was interlaced with lots of public footpaths. These muddy little public rights of way were a great way to get around the village on my bike while avoiding the ‘busy’ roads. Unfortunately for anyone who used public footpaths the fact was that local dog owners also used to use them as latrines. Well to be more accurate the dogs used the public footpaths as toilets, not the owners. This was way back when the public still tolerated people letting their dogs shit anywhere they want.

One day back in the early 1990s I cycled across the village (using the footpaths) to see my mates at the vicarage. So yeah, my mates’ dad was the village vicar. When the vicar let me into his house he commented that he could smell canine excrement. He quite reasonably asked me to take my shoes off. I had a shifty look at them and couldn’t see any dog shit. He still asked me to leave them on the doorstep. Fair enough. A lot of people come and go from the vicarage, it would be most unseemly to have parishioners’ noses troubled by the stench of dog shit while they’re talking god.

I spent a few hours watching TV and generally hanging out. The whole time none of us could figure out where the smell of dog shit was coming from. It was really pungent.

When it was time to head home I checked my bike tyres for poop. Because of the amount of dog shit on the public footpaths it was really standard to get poop stuck in your bike tyres. But both my tyres were entirely free of poo. I cycled home using the roads, just to try and avoid picking up any more mystery stinks.

When I walked through the front door at my parents’ house my mum turned her nose up and asked me to leave my shoes outside. I showed her that my shoes were clean and sat down at the kitchen table ready for our family dinner.

The dinner was not pleasant. Well the food was okay but the stench of dog shit was most off-putting. After dinner I watched television with my mum, dad and little sister for a couple of hours. The whole time everyone (including me) was complaining about the smell of dog shit in the house.

Just before bed I needed a sit down on the toilet, and as I crouched over and slid my jeans down I saw that I had dog shit smeared around my crotch on the outside of my jeans. It must have been flicked up by my bike wheels or pedals and had been stuck there all evening, spreading and ingraining itself in the denim. Obviously the vicar nor anyone else had thought to check my groin when trying to find the source of the stink. I guess I must have left a fair few traces in the soft furnishings at the vicarage as well. Oops.

So that’s the story, and it’s a story I’ve told countless times before. But why was it today’s fuckup? Well I’ll tell you.

On the walk to the theatre, as I was telling the tale there was a group of ‘gentlemen’ walking down the road towards us. If you live in England you might be familiar with the type of blokes who were walking towards us. Baseball caps, jogging bottoms, cans of super-strength lager, wafts of cheap hash and Staffordshire Bull Terriers on chains. There’s no judgement call from me here, I’m just painting a picture.

Because this group of blokes was walking towards us they didn’t hear the whole of my story. They didn’t hear much of my story at all. In fact the only words they heard me say were ‘...and I’ve got dog shit smeared all around my crotch!’. This was enough to stop them in their tracks and they were most vocal on the subject of their disapproval. They were horrified, waving their arms, shouting at me and one bloke started dry-heaving. I found this far too funny and we sped up our walking pace to get away rather than offer any kind of explanation.

I know these geezers are going to be telling their mates the story about this bloke who smears dog shit round his crotch. I might even have created a new urban myth.

TL;DR I made some chavs think I had deliberately smeared dog shit around my crotch