Yes lass, I am just cutting through the park. Be home in five minutes.

I put my phone away and smiled to myself. It was the weekend, it was nearly December and Christmas was looming. I was feeling exceptionally happy. I had two bottles of wine in my rucksack, some tinsel and a jar of smoked chilli paste.

Hopefully, the Police didn't stop me and search my bag. I mean, I would arrest someone for that shit.

The park was beginning to get dark, full of the usual dog walkers with their flicky ball throwers and some kids attempting to set fire to some plastic.

Good times.

Up ahead on the path, I saw a man with a large black poodle. I chuckled to myself, a fucking poodle. Why not just tie a bath mat up with some butcher's string and cover it in piss and have that for a pet. It would probably be cheaper to maintain.

I saw the Poodle start to squat and the man tug at its lead in alarm.

Ebonia wait. Wait!

The man ferreted about in his bag and pulled out a black baggy which he rapidly pulled over his hand like a glove.

I looked, perplexed, as I approached to within about ten feet of them. By now he had crouched down and was hovering around Ebonia's arse with his bag-sheathed hand waving from side to side like someone attempting to change gears on a tractor made of bacon.

I felt a dawning sense of horror overcome me and slowed to a stop.

By now Ebonia was twitching like a flea-infested carpet.

Dog dude must have sensed someone and looked over his shoulder at me apologetically.

Easier to catch it as it comes out.

He exclaimed cheerily as if we all loved to shit in each other's hands of an evening.

Fucking... What?

I sputtered like a poorly lit firework.

It's kinda sticky right now, so it is easier to catch it as it comes out instead of all that scraping from the ground, you know?

The guy grinned like some kind of shit-catching demon sent from hell with a mission to chew gum and catch shit.

I looked at him with a seething sense of wrong as something dark and foamy started flubbering from his dog's arse into his bagged hand like a Mr Whippy from another darker dimension.

There we are. There's a good girl.

Shitcatcher reassured his satanic bathmat as more brown foam shuddered out onto his hands with a wet gurgling noise.

I made a boak noise as I attempted to stifle the need to explosively vomit. No doubt Shitcatcher would put on another one of his baggy gloves and try to catch it if I did.

My head was spinning. Whatever happened to just letting your dog shit on the ground and punching someone who complained?

What was the world coming to? Was no one thinking of the poor toilet paper companies if we all started catching our shits?

Please don't tell me you are going to wipe your dog's arse?

I said trying not to show my utter revulsion at this fucking shambles of a human being and his brown-fingered devilry.

Eww, of course not!

Shitcatcher stared at me as if I was the scat-catching deviant and not he.

He stood and turned the baggy on his hand inside out, knotting it before depositing it in a pocket.

Wipe her bottom. That's just wrong. Weirdo.

He shook his head and hurried away, pulling urgently on Ebonia's lead as if he wanted to get home before the poo in his pocket got cold.

I stared after him, lost for words. He just caught his dog's shit in his hand and I am the weirdo?

Fuck me, life is too hard.