I stole this urinal sieve. My wife, Tamsin, doesn’t think it’s something I should brag about, which I think just makes her un-American. She isn’t American by the way.

The urinal sieve, however, is. It began its urinal sieve life in the male toilets of the Trocadero Theatre, Philadelphia. ‘The Troc’ is a beautiful place, a Victorian gem dating back to 1870 that’s still hosting theatre and music in modern day Chinatown. I visited in December 2001, drinking beer in its Balcony Bar with my friend Harry Burgess, when he made the discovery in the men’s room.

‘Tone, you’ve got to go have a look at this! They’ve set it up so you can piss on Osama bin Laden!’

Harry, a brilliant man who has dedicated his life to studying zebrafish, is full of odd enthusiasms. He once wrote a 200 page novel in two weeks, just to see if he could (he could), and together, we once translated the lyrics to the Neighbours theme song into Latin, just to see if we could (we couldn’t). What I’m attempting to say is that Harry Burgess enthusiasm is white light enthusiasm. Get caught in its beam, and you’re liable to do something you might not ordinarily do, such as steal an ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ urinal sieve.

‘I think you should take it,’ Harry said, as we hovered over the driest of the three yellow rubber mats. ‘It’d be such a souvenir of America at this time. And the Trocadero probably has others. Or can get others.’

I was convinced. The urinal sieve had attitude. The urinal sieve was everything that’s great about the USA – a quick-fire, free market response to a demand that nobody knows is there, as an expression of wartime solidarity.

‘But is it too disgusting?’ I asked Harry. ‘It’s got piss on it.’

Harry nodded. ‘Well it’s too disgusting for me to steal. Which is why I’m suggesting you do it. You’re the one who says germs are overrated.’

This was true. I scanned the bathroom, checking we were the only inhabitants. ‘You’d have to keep watch.’

Harry nodded.

‘I’m going to pick it up with toilet paper and then … have you got something for me to put it in?’

Harry, being a scientist, just happened to have a specimen bag. We stepped back into a cubicle, wrapped my hands in toilet paper, and I stepped forward.

Just as I bent down to do the deed, the door swung open. Harry ducked back into the cubicle. A blond guy in a red parka wandered past, unzipping as he moved, and commenced to piss on the adjacent Osama bin Laden. I unzipped too, so as not to arouse suspicion. We then stood there, staring down, me hoping he wouldn’t notice either the lack of flow or the fact that my right hand was wrapped in toilet paper. He half glanced my way. I think he assumed both stage fright and a Howard Hughes-like approach to hygiene. He washed his hands and left.

As the door sighed shut, I made my decisive lunge. I brushed the yellow urinal cakes to one side and lifted up the prize. Harry was behind me, supposedly keeping watch, but for the second time in a minute the bathroom door was opening.

‘Shit, Harry,’ I said, with piss-soaked rubber mat pinched between thumb and forefinger.

‘Back in here!’ he hissed, retreating to the cubicle.

As the next patron entered, we clattered, whispered and giggled our way through the bagging process. The new arrival took one glance over his shoulder, and gave a long nasal exhale that indicated he knew exactly what was going on behind him. Harry responded by crouching up on the toilet seat, reducing feet on floor to two. ‘So it didn’t look like we were having sex’ he would later explain. Eventually, the exasperated nasal breather flushed, washed hands and departed, allowing us a small time window in which to do the same. I washed and I washed and I washed. That awful smelling cherry hand wash has never been asked to work so hard.

Back at Harry’s apartment, I was given proper soap, and my sieve was given industrial strength disinfectant.

‘What do you think you’ll do with it when you get back home?’ Harry asked.

‘Dunno. Probably frame it. Put it up on the bathroom wall or something.’

‘Yeah. That’s what I’d do if I were you.’

Eleven years later, it still isn’t on the bathroom wall. Tamsin, who keeps a keen eye on the home decorating magazines, says that no amount of disinfectant can turn a urinal sieve into decor. She’s probably right, even if it is now a historical artifact. And so, as with everything else of mine she hates, I’ll put it on the wall at work.