I think this is a funny story. It’s short and to the point – a perfect little thing – and I’ve told it a bunch of times, generally with the desired effect (yuck), but I’ve had to think twice about writing it up here.

It was told first-hand to me by someone who is reasonably well known these days but back before they’d made a solid name for themselves. As best I can recall I wasn’t sworn to secrecy (though I could have been, it all happened years ago and a confidentiality clause may well have been implied at the time of telling – God only knows). So here’s my quandary - is it right and fair to tell the story? Is it just some tawdry tittle-tattle? More importantly, is it a funny story in itself? Does the musician involved lend anything to the tale? Does it work without namechecking them? Does it even work written down?

Regardless, if you know me well enough I’ve likely told you this one anyway, and absolutely including the character in question, in which case this exercise, and indeed the anecdote itself become pretty much pointless. Everyone passes on a story if it’s barely good enough don’t they? But is this yarn good enough? Furthermore I’ve better things I could blog about haven’t I? Why am I wasting time on this crude filmflam?

Oh, I don’t know. I’m likely over-thinking the whole thing.

Ok then, the censored version - treat it as an experiment. Or something.

A FAMOUS BAND played THE VENUE I WAS WORKING AT a couple of times on their way up to larger halls - once with ANOTHER FAMOUS BAND opening if I remember correctly. I’ve a feeling their previous incarnation THE BAND THEY WERE IN BEFORE THEY FORMED THE BAND THAT BECAME SUCCESFULL may have played at some point too.

It’s the second and ultimately final occasion that THE BAND have come through THE VENUE, their soundcheck is over and they have ASCENDED / DESCENDED / WALKED THROUGH to the dressing room where I was working away in a nearby office.

THE BAND are good folk - pleasant, funny and wry – an easy bunch to be around and look after. Remembering me from their previous visit their singer LET’S CALL HIM MR X says hello and I ask him how things are going?

He tells me that he’s actually a little bushed as he’s fresh from helping his girlfriend move house back in THE CITY THE BAND ARE FROM. In fact, he says it’s been an even more fraught relocation than your average house moving as there’s bad blood between his girlfriend and her ex-housemates. The usual kind of thing - unpaid bills, unequal cleaning rotas and vanishing food - all those well documented, and depressing, shared house annoyances. She’s moving while they are out of the house to avoid further confrontation. 

Anyhow, just as they have finished loading up the last of her belongings and are ready to leave, MR X’s girlfriend excuses herself and pops back into the house.

She has one last thing to take care of.

Emerging a short while later she hops into the hired van and they leave. Safely away, she explains what she’s done - she’s left a special gift for her erstwhile housemates. A time bomb of sorts.

Taking the communal margarine from the fridge, she has scooped half out, shat straight into the tub, and then carefully replaced and smoothed over the top half - leaving a foul, buried seam waiting for that inevitable scoop too far.

So there you have it.

Someone shitting into margarine.

Scatological hokum at best I suppose.

But hey, there’s a chance that not a single word of it is true of course.