Another poo story

I've been inundated with requests to tell another story about jobbies. So here goes.

I was out running the other night with the dog on the on the King's and Queen's Courses at Gleneagles. It was superb. Not a golfer around - it was after 7 pm and everyone at Gleneagles would have been in one of the expensive bars (£14.50 for a G&T, would you believe). It was a pleasant, sunny evening, albeit a bit cold. I had beautiful lush, well manicured fairways to run on (I tried to stay off the greens and tees); and I was running with a dog who was completely in her element as she ran up, down and across the various holes. A better run it is hard to imagine.

After a while the dog needed a poo, so she stopped beside one of the tees to do her stuff. I'm a good dog owner and always carry poo bags to lift her poo. I absolutely detest dog owners who leave it lying. There is no excuse. These people should have their dogs taken off them, given to a better owner, then forced to clean dog poo from pavements every day until they have understood the error of their ways. I'm no lily-livered liberal when it comes to dog poo, am I Mr Subversive Runner?

Anyway I lifted the poo and, not wanting to leave it in one of Gleneagles' posh bins, decided to carry it back to the car to dispose of it elsewhere. So I'm running along quite happily, loving my run, poo bag in hand and not a care in the world. Then I realised the poo bag didn't feel quite right. I looked down and saw that the bag had burst. A significant amount of poo was now spread all over my shorts, top and bumbag, and there was also some on my hand. Fortunately the remainder was still in the bag - another few minutes and it would all have been on me. So in that respect I was quite lucky.

I took immediate action. I ran into the rough, found some large tufts of grass, and wiped as much as I could off my shorts, top, bumbag and hand. That got rid of a lot of it. Then I put the remainder in to another poo bag and, just to be safe, into a third. You may think that was shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted, but I thought it was a sensible precaution. Then I continued my run, thankfully with no further leakages.

When I reached the car (Alison's car, fortunately, rather than mine) it was difficult to put on my seatbelt without it touching the poo on my shorts and top. But at least I tried. When I got home, all my clothes went straight in the wash. Normally I would wear my shorts for at least a couple of runs, but on this occasion that didn't seem appropriate.

There is a lesson to be learned from this story. Don't try and save money buying cheap poo bags. It's a false economy.