Moncton — Hub City residents are celebrating a rave review from travel blogger Andrew Gunadie, even though dozens of witnesses to the blogger’s visit have confirmed that he was wearing actual blinders — like you’d see on a horse — while gallivanting around the city.
Gunadie, who goes by the online moniker Gunnarolla, said Moncton is the place to be, baffling New Brunswick residents who are nonetheless clinging to their first positive review in years.
“Of course Moncton would seem OK if your peripheral vision is completely eliminated,” said witness John Monteith, who has lived in the city his entire life. “He must have been looking directly at our two to three solid attractions and willfully ignoring the real, shitty Moncton all around him.”
“I thought it was some guy in those hipster thick-rimmed glasses, but then I did a double-take when I saw his camera gear, and upon closer inspection he was actually wearing blinders… you know, like people use to make a horse stay on a straight path,” said Moncton businessman Ralph Bellieu. “He walked into the Tide & Boar — which is a beautiful spot, I’ll admit — and appeared not to see the homeless people sitting there on both sides of the door. And he must’ve just stared at the menu and his food, not the other customers who were leering at him and wearing old hoodies and pyjama pants.”
Gunnarolla said when he visits a new place, if he knows it will suck but wants to put a positive spin on his experience, he simply dons his trusty blinders so he can see filth as “character,” destitution as “charm,” and make a shoddy city seem “quaint.”
“Canadian Geographic sent me out East, and I was like ‘Sure, why not? I could throw them a bone. They definitely could use it,'” said Gunadie. “I considered just continuing on to Halifax or Charlottetown, but didn’t want to waste my time; I got all my footage and pictures around this area so I could escape as soon as possible. And the Hopewell Rocks are nice — especially if you have blinders on so you can’t see the gawking tourists on all sides.”
“I’m from Moncton and I know as well as anyone that it’s a heaping mound of rot that you drive through to get anywhere else,” said Bertha Lutes, another longtime resident. “I saw that guy walkin’ around, lookin’ straight ahead, takin’ pictures, and I knew he wasn’t from here. Mainly because if he was from here, he’d just be loitering in some vacant lot with a pack of smokes.”
Moncton’s mayor had mixed feelings about the review.
“I really knew he was full of it when I saw the story and he praised the Petitcodiac River,” said Mayor Dawn Arnold. “Imagine — the Chocolate River! That’s a long, winding river of shit and there’s no point pretending otherwise. But hey, we need a good-news story. We’ll take it.”