A Poo In A Field

'A Poo In A Field' 

by 

Christopher McIntosh, Liverpool, U.K.

It was a scorching hot Saturday afternoon towards the end of the school summer holidays and I was with two of my best friends, Paul and Joe. We were 11 years old and like most kids our age, we spent nearly all of the time we weren't in school playing football. Joe's house backed on to a massive field so most days you could find us there.  On this particular afternoon though, we decided to take the 15 minute stroll down to Jackson's Park to play footy. I can't remember why we'd decided to break the mould, I can only assume that we were bored of our usual playing field and craved exotic new pastures to play '3 and in' on.  I remember the stroll well, we stopped off and bought an ice-pop and we kicked the ball along as we slowly walked, occasionally dashing to stop it from rolling into the busy road.  We got to Jackson's park and lay down our jumpers to use as goal posts and began our game of 3 and in. The premise of 3 and in is fairly simple. One person goes in goal whilst the others battle it out, one on one and the first to score three goals gets to swap with the current goalie and the game starts again.  I never understood why whoever scores three goals first doesn't get the choice to either be the goalie themselves or nominate the other player - it seemed like you were being punished for being the superior footballer. Going in goal is rubbish and I try to avoid it at all costs, even now, as a 30 year old man I'm always first to shout a rapid-fire 'BAGSY LAST IN!!'.

Anyway, we played for about an hour on Jackson's Park before I felt poo's first gentle taps upon the door. We packed up our stuff and set off for home, this time with slightly more urgency than on the way there. In hindsight, I think the ice-pop I had earlier on might have played a part in why what happened happened. Joe's house was the closest so that's where we were headed. However, as we neared our destination, I noticed that I no longer needed to use the toilet.It had gone back in, so to speak, so we headed straight to the field, our normal spot, and we continued our game of 3 and in. It was around 5pm by now and the field was a hive of activity. The referees of the amateur football matches taking place were now blowing their whistles for full time, there were multiple dog walkers, other kids playing footy, people flying kites and couples holding hands whilst cutting across the field as a short cut to get from Childwall Valley Road to Barnham Drive. It was at this exact moment when my poo came back with a vengeance. It came from nowhere...there were no warning signs, no chance to prepare, to head to Joe's house where I could sit down, privately on the comfort of a toilet and evacuate my bowels 

I was in goal at the time and I just remember shouting, 'IT'S COMING OUT, IT'S COMING OUT!!', like a maniac whilst simultaneously unbuckling my belt as fast as my hands would let me and yanking down my kecks in the middle of this bustling public space and doing a massive, bright, golden poo on the grass. I remember crying whilst it was happening. I was crying and shouting, 'SHUT UP!! STOP IT NOW!!', to my two best friends who were also crying, but their tears were tears caused by laughing hysterically and uncontrollably as they creased over and pointed and laughed and laughed and laughed. At one point, my friend Joe was literally rolling around on the floor laughing. Once my body had finished leaking, I quickly pulled my pants up and began waddling back to the house. I couldn't bare to look up as I walked, I couldn't bare the shame, so I just stared at the ground the whole way and sobbed. My pants were dead wet too because I'd wee'd on them whilst I was pooing myself. I got back to the house and Joe's mum cleaned me up and sorted me out with some clean scruds.  I made her promise not to tell my own mum for fear she'd batter me (not literally) but I did tell her in the end, about 2 years later when I was in hospital just after I'd woken up from an operation I had to remove my appendix.