(~5 minutes to read)
So Punxsutawney Phil has performed his annual prognostication, and there are six more weeks of winter to go.
Call me grumpy/cynical/party-pooper/whatever, but whoopdy flipping do! Who, outside of Gobbler’s Knob (a place that ranks up there with Bell End and Pratts Bottom for “need to change the name” attention) gives a rodent’s rectum about a grumpy rodent seeing his shadow or not?
Millions of people, it seems.
In all the hype and pomp and ceremony, nobody seems to care about Phil, so let me fix that. This is his diary entry for Feb 2nd, 2018.
Those bloody idiots in their black top hats and coats woke me up again this morning. They do this every year! Don’t they realize that I need to hibernate until March?
This year, it seemed like they used an earth compacter about ten yards from my burrow to wake me up. I thought it was an earthquake; 8.5 at least!
Idiots!
The ways they coax me into waking up are many and varied. One year, I’m sure they threw water on me. Another time, they played some infuriating bloody marching music.
Three years ago, they tried being extra-special nice to me—they played “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons gently in my burrow. Dee dum-de-dum diddy-dum… I love that tune… But I heard people complaining about it. Something about “you mustn’t influence his forecast.” No idea what they meant.
I remember a while ago, they wafted female groundhog scent down my way. Idiots! All these years and they’ve never bothered to check if I’m a guy or not. Don’t they know that “Phil” is short for “Philomena”?
So the scent was a waste of time, and they had to poke me with a stick like they do most years.
Anyway, they woke me up. Not a word of apology. Not even an offer to fluff up my pillow. Out they take me into the perishing cold (0.1Kelvin by my reckoning), hold me up in the air, and show me to forty thousand other idiots, every one of whom was pointing their smartphone or camera at me.
I gave them such a look!
Now bear in mind that I’ve been asleep for three months or so at this point, and they didn’t even give me a chance to “make myself comfortable”. And bear in mind that when they lift me up, they poke my tummy with their hands.
The indignity! I’m 132 years old, and still perfectly continent, thanks to the groundhog punch they feed me every fall. But a lady can only control herself so much in such conditions.
I’m sure the dry cleaners will be able to get his nice black coat looking as good as new.
Actually, I thought of molting over his coat—a few of the white hairs left behind would have served to let him know I wasn’t happy with the situation. But it was so cold, I figured I needed every hair I could keep.
Anyway. They put me on this purple mat thing, and stared at me.
Stared! How rude! And one of them had halitosis. But when one of the others mentioned it, he blamed it on me! “Early morning breath” he said. Like they gave me a chance to do something about it.
Anyway, I stared back, and they got the message, because they backed away and one of them picked me up again. And then the guy with the talking stick spoke to the crowd and said that there was going to be six more weeks of winter!
No s**t Sherlock! I could’ve told them that!
So… people cheered and people booed and people clapped and people laughed, and then the idiots in black put me back in my burrow. Not even a little dandelion treat to make up for disturbing my sleep… again!
So here I am. Hunkered down in my burrow, nice and warm again (finally!). My diary entry’s finished. I’m just going to read the Farmer’s Almanac for a few minutes—see what the weather’s going to be later in the year, and then I’m going back to sleep.
Maybe I’ll be less grumpy come March. I should probably edit this diary entry when I wake up, just in case I’ve exaggerated or written some untruth.
See you in six weeks’ time.
Phil
P.S. If you see Bill Murray, tell him, “thanks a million” from me for making my February 2nd even more terrifying than it used to be!
I hope the crowds at Gobbler’s Knob get to read Phil’s diary. Perhaps they’ll realize that he (actually I don’t know if it’s a he or a she) has no more powers of foresight than they have. After all, the predictions that Phil is credited with have been correct only 39% of the time. And in any case, I’ve never understood why shadow (=clear sky) means more winter and no shadow (= cloud) means spring. Can someone enlighten me?
A Little Background…
Groundhog Day has its roots in Germany, where Dachstag or “Badger Day” was observed on Candlemas, the Christian festival that marks the 40th day of the Christmas-Epiphany season. Immigrants brought the tradition to Pennsylvania, but presumably the area lacked badgers, so they had to seek a new folklore meteorologist.
Phil started his predictions in the 1880s, and until the movie “Groundhog Day” was released, his Punxsutawney performance was relatively low-key—around 2,000 people attended. Today, the crowd is of the order of 40,000 people.
It’s claimed that Phil is over 130 years old, and owes his longevity to regular doses of “Groundhog Punch”. He speaks a language that only the President of the Groundhog Club, with the help of an acacia cane, can understand.
Interestingly, the Groundhog Club in Punxsutawney was formed originally to hunt and eat groundhogs. Wikipedia says so, so it must be true.
And a Comment on the Hype…
This is news on the BBC’s website, for crying out loud! While I realize that the BBC is a worldwide news service, why on the big guy’s good green earth would the rest of the world care about when the weather is going to break in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania?
And where’s the BBC report on Balzac Billy, who reported an early spring in the Calgary region this year?
Ok this was funny and very enlightening.
I learned so much and am now equipped to ace the next trivia game that I enter.
oh please let there be Groundhog Day questions!!
And if the triva game is held on Groundhog Day, you might get the chance to answer questions over and over until you get them right!