Festival-Goer Takes “If You Sprinkle While You Tinkle” Maxim To New, Horrifying Levels

noah | September 3, 2009 2:00 pm

A woman known as “Charlotte” has inspired lots of tittering and even a little bit of Internet fandom thanks to her dropping her purse, which contained all of her cash as well as her bus ticket home, down a Porta-Potty’s chute at this weekend’s Leeds Festival. She then spent (wait for it) 20 minutes surrounded by the temporary toilet’s innards because (wait for it once more) she stuck both her hands down the hatch and (yes) had to be extracted from the loo by local firefighters. So if you’re having a bad day, just think: It could be worse!

The cousin of the victim spoke to Sky News about the ordeal:

After 20 minutes they had to pull Charlotte out, leaving her with more bruises on her hips, her cousin said.

“She was hosed down, which was a bit embarrassing,” Katie added, “but she hadn’t been covered in anything as her hands were a good few feet above it.

“She went to get changed and she stayed for the rest of the festival – but she said she felt paranoid as she thought people would be nasty about the incident.

“It did spoil it a little bit.”

“She was a bit distressed when she came home but I told her not to take it to heart and I think she’s able to laugh it off now.”

Well, thank God she didn’t, uh, hit anything. In the days following the festival, “Charlotte” has been dubbed “Poo Girl” by the Twittering masses; she even has a 15,000-member Facebook group devoted to her (btw, don’t click on that link unless you want to be “greeted” by a picture of a porta-potty’s innards). There are rumors of tie-in merchandise, even, but a) I haven’t been able to find any yet and b) judging by the photo attached to that Facebook group… ew.

This story has extra personal significance, since I am about to embark on a trip to Allentown, Pa., where I will be watching Kelly Clarkson perform at the Great Allentown Fair. So, do follow Idolator’s Twitter feed for any updates on either the state of my bag, or just my travels—my second municipal-fair concert experience; I saw Rick Springfield at a fair outside of Chicago for the low price of a dollar a few years back—and come back tomorrow for a blow-by-blow rundown of the day! With pictures! And also probably some vague lingering sense of nausea from remembering this story, not to mention all the fried food that I’ll no doubt be confronted with.

Search for “Poo Girl” stepped up [Sunderland Echo] Poo Girl Leeds Fest 2009 Appreciation Society [Facebook] [HT (?): The Awl]