"The Horrible Pooey Take That Incident" or "Take That Pants!"

This rather unpleasant incident happened relatively recently, in fact, it was just two years ago. In the months leading up to this I'd dragged Mrs C to see a number of bands that she'd never even heard of, so in return I ended up accompanying her to see Take That at Old Trafford cricket ground. We met up with four others on the morning of the concert and made our way to the ground via a few pubs. Upon entering the ground it became immediately obvious that this wasn't the kind of gig I'm used to. There were a large number of middle aged women who seemed to believe that if they got there early and put a tartan rug and inflatable chair on the floor it automatically entitled them to take up approximately seven hectares of space that would become entirely theirs. If you entered into this space it was as if you were approaching the gates of Hades itself to find Cerberus on a really bad day and feeling a bit hormonal. 

 

Once we managed to find a spot where we weren't disturbing somebody’s picnic we decided to go and get drinks. We very cleverly suggested that Mrs C put up her silver umbrella which would guide us back from the bar like a big shiny beacon. At some point during the expedition, as we fought our way through inflatable chairs, victoria sponge and thermos flasks we forgot the umbrella was silver and began to believe it was pink. Whilst at the bar it began to rain and upon leaving the bar, still feeling quite clever about our pink beacon, it became apparent that almost the whole crowd had pink umbrellas. Evidently some unscrupulous fucker was selling them just to confuse me. It was almost like one of the impossible challenges on Saw. I could almost hear Jigsaw saying "Let's play a game. You wanted beer, but how well can you carry it? In front of you are a million pink umbrellas, under one of these is your friends. Can you find them, without spilling any beer, your life depends on it?" The task before us was immense but we made our way through though and eventually reached our (silver) destination. I think the confusion over the brolly was the beginning of the end, nothing good could ever come of this day now.

At this point the torrential rain started, the like of which hadn't been seen since Noah had his little zoo or that time around 2006 when everywhere flooded and that French man got stuck on that roundabout and PC World got looted. As I stood there in the torrential rain for a few hours, enduring Take That and getting angry about people in a large crowd wearing giant rucksacks, I started to get a strange sensation in my stomach. I soon realised that it was that sensation when your stomach is announcing its intention to evacuate everything from your arse in liquid form. I quickly turned around and began to force my way through the thousands of people stood behind me. It was like the battle of the Somme but with screaming women and a few gay men. Half way there I realised I wasn't going to make it in time as a warm sensation flooded my pants. I eventually reached the toilets and realised there were about 100 womens toilets and not a gents to be seen anywhere. I decided to squelch into the nearest womens and collapsed into a cubicle. Once all the arse eruptions were complete I discovered a lack of toilet roll. Calling out to another toilet wasn't an option as I was in the ladies, I figured I needed to remove my boxer shorts anyway, so using these would be my only choice. At this point it's worth mentioning that I was wearing very tight skinny jeans and chelsea boots. Both of these items are quite difficult to remove at the best of times but when a bit drunk and soaked to the skin it became something akin to the Krypton Factor. I tried and tried and tried but I couldn't do it. At this point I fell into a huge spiral of despair. I tried to phone Mrs C, I'm not actually sure what I would have said, maybe I was phoning just to say some last words as by this point I think I'd become convinced that I'd never be able to leave this dirty cubicle and would actually die here. I began to see the headlines, "Man Found Dead and covered in poo in female toilets at Take That gig." I even considered phoning my mum to say goodbye but it was a bit late and she always thinks late phonecalls are bad news. Best leave that to the police. I was genuinely convinced I was going to die and started to prepare myself for heaven or hell. I began to think that most deaths involving poo would almost definitely result in going to hell.

 

Eventually I mustered the strength to retry the boot removal and suddenly there was movement when I tugged my boot. As it came off I half expected part of my foot to come with it, as it was quite possible that trench foot had set in. Removing my boots was the hard part, the trousers were easy in comparison. I removed my boxers used them for operation cleanup and unfortunately had to leave them on the top of the toilet. If I had a pen and paper I would have left a note of apology for the cleaner ("Sorry about the poo pants" or something). I often think about the poor cleaner to this day. I re-donned my trousers, now commando style and quickly emerged from the cubicle feeling triumphant that I had genuinely cheated a horrible pooey death, newspaper headlines and grief and embarrassment for my family.