Arsing things up

Dartmouth Style

On a recent ride, I stopped along the banks of an abandoned lock - part of the Shubenacadie Canal system.

The high walls built of cut granite in the late nineteenth century still stood.

Sure, there’s moss and a bit of graffiti, but the walls of the locks still stand strong.

Along one of the locks by the inclined plane there’s a spillway. It’s a meter tall tunnel that goes into the bank then pops out about four meters downstream.

While poking around in there I found a little book. Its title?

A Troll’s Guide to Arsing Things Up.

In it there were several simple and practical tips - this book contained advice on everything from the best way to eat raw fish ye suck out the eyes before they perform their last blink to the finer points of troll psychology - to become a true troll, you must become completely depleted of all fucks. With none to give then true power ye shall find.

But what was most surprising were the grooming tips.

For if ye shall truly find greatness as a troll, yer eyebrows must grow to their most magnificent shagnifity.

It seems, dear reader, that the muddy banks of the Shubenacadie have coughed up more than just forgotten history.

This "Troll's Guide," with its emphasis on magnificent, untamed eyebrows spoke to my soul. It’s a defiant rejection of societal grooming pressures, a visual declaration of utter indifference – and the almost aspirational state of being utterly depleted of all fucks…

It reads less like a guide and more like an instruction manual.

In the civil world of righteous arrogance, it seems to have all of the wrong answers.

It’s as though I've been subconsciously following this wisdom my entire life.

Perhaps my journey into the finer points of arsing things up wasn't some haphazard descent into delightful chaos, but a destined path laid out in a waterlogged tome beneath a Dartmouth spillway.

Consider this a peek behind the curtain, or maybe just a glimpse of the eyebrows that were always meant to be.

Stay tuned. The canal's secrets, and the true art of trolling, are clearly far from exhausted.