The Clog Blog

City sewer authorities are imploring the women of Ottawa to consider shaving one half of each leg per week to remove winter growth. “We want to avoid clogging pipes as occurred last year when all women residents shaved their legs on the first day that temperatures rose above 0 Celcius.”

As snow melts and April showers approach apocalyptic volumes, city officials have noted high levels of human hair in effluent into the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers. The Ottawa Riverkeeper president, Wade Greenleaf, reports that although industrious beavers are combing the shoreline gathering hair for lodge insulation, they are unable to recycle all the tiny shafts of hair.

Downstream, at Lac de Deux Montagnes, at the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers near Montréal, mice have begun to show up in traps wearing vests woven with leg hair. A noted fashion mole, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Montréal’s fashion designers are exploring broader applications in fabric weaving using reclaimed human hair hoping to advertise its sustainability as part of the first 100 mile fashion week in September 2019.

Coincidentally, Montréal police issued an alert stating both men and women have been attacked while asleep and had their legs shaved. Police urge everyone not to post pictures on Instagram of their winter growth (#whoselegsarehairiest). Canadian Tire is capitalizing on the incidents and, in a community service, is giving away lawn signs saying “No hairy legs here”. Shopper’s Drug Mart reports a spike in sales of Nair and Barbasol and Vaseline Intensive Care, the latter being sold to men unaccustomed to razor rash on their legs.

Robins, squirrels and starlings nests gleam with highlights of the many shades of human leg hair. Naturalists, commenting on the positive unintended consequences for these creative recyclers, note the repellent qualities that human leg hair woven into nests provides – predators avoid them. This did not come as a surprise to the women of Ottawa and Montréal.

Readers are invited to share their hairiest spring adventures. #Spare no details.