Press box horror stories

Since we've moved to the bathroom phase of the stories ...

Before one game, I was in line to use the urinals at a game. An NFL scout was standing in front of me. A sports media personality exits one of the stalls after vacating his bowels. He flushed. Then walked in front of the scout and I to the sinks ... where he checked his hair, made sure his fly was up and then left.

The scout turned to me and said "He didn't wash his hands. You saw he didn't wash his hands, right?"

The scout used the urinal, washed and left. I did the same and opened the door to him standing with four other scouts. He spots me and waves me over, so I could verify the lack of hand-washing.

 

Poppy's kinda sloppy.

 

As a rule of thumb, you're better off not reading the comment threads.

 

I caught someone stealing something off my laptop screen once as I was on my way back from getting up to make a private call to the office.

 

On a Greyhound bus.

 

Off your screen? What does that mean?

 

Ohio high school state track meet, the first year they have it at Jessie Owens Stadium.
Only a select few are allowed in the press box (which was fine), with the rest of the writers housed in one renovated locker room and the photographers in another.
I'm working for a weekly as a writer and photographer, so I'm housed with the photographers. Again, no problem, as everyone does his/her job, with no stealing or moving of equipment.
Meal time rolls around the first day and the staff brings the food to both sites.
Here's where those who planned the media logistics must have taken a nap.
Both media work spaces have restroom facilities.
Those used by the writers are accessed through a door that shuts, and are in fact in a separate room. The photographers have a nice view of toilets (without seat covers, by the way) along a wall, just a few feet away from the food. If I recall, these toilets aren't even in stalls, just toilets along a wall.
Basically, our work space was a large bathroom with a food table in the middle of it, on a hot, humid June day in Ohio.
Thankfully, someone (either the state athletic association or the stadium officials) made some changes after that.

 

I'm using "stole" the way Spalding Gray's character used it in "The Paper" when he accused Michael Keaton's character of stealing a story lead (as opposed to lede) off his desk at the Sentinel.

 

That's what I suspected. That's bush-league.

 

I was covering a high school football game several years ago between two big conference rivals, crowd was over 5,000. During halftime I make a mad dash for the restroom. Problem is the restroom on the home side had only five stalls and the line was already several hundred long. If I stayed in that line I would have probably missed half the third quarter.

So I went into the home team's locker room and took a leak there. Star running back from said team is in the urinal next to mine and freaks out that an assistant coach from the other team was in there spying on them. I told him to take it easy, I just had to go to the bathroom. Coaching staff from that team got a good laugh out of it and I didn't miss any of the game.