At an English music festival four or five years ago, my wife and I made some new friends.
While putting our tent up, a girl with bouncy hair excitedly ran up to my wife to ask if they could be friends.
Later that night at about 5am the four of us were sitting on a rug near the tents. Pete, Lena, me and Masha (my wife).
Pete purposefully got up and trotted off for a poo. The row of plastic porta-loo things were nearby so he didn’t have far to go.
We didn’t think anything of it until he came back. We knew instantly something had happened. We would have feared the worst if we knew what it was.
With a tense nervous excitement, he said ‘did you see it!?!’.
‘What?’
‘You couldn’t have missed it, you must have. If you didn’t see it, come and check it out!’.
‘Check what out?’.
‘The turd! Come and see the turd!’
With an invitation like that, who could resist?
We quickly got up and ran to the row of poo storage cabins, only to find a queue had formed. No matter, we’ll wait, the turd will still be there.
With the impatient excitement mounting, Masha who needed a wee anyway, was about to piss herself.
It was ok though; a moment later our group reached the front of the queue.
Pete frantically ran to the first cabin, checked, waited for the next to be free, checked that one, and the next, and the next, looking increasingly distraught.
Just as he reached the last cubicle, a woman greedily ran in there. I assumed she had some sort of business to attend to.
Pete politely knocked on the door.
‘Excuse me.’
‘What?’
‘Is there a turd in there?’
‘What?’
‘A turd. You know. We’re looking for a turd. I’ve checked the other cubicles, so it must be in there!’
As this unfolded, our giggling turned into concern as we realised that the turd was nowhere to be found.
Four years later I’m still haunted by this unanswered question. What happened to the turd? Was it stolen by the turd burglar? Maybe someone had left it there and came back to retrieve it? I’m almost certain I’ll never find out now.