Groundhog Day
Jennifer Flaten

I can’t wait for the next major holiday. No, not Valentine’s Day, silly; I am excited about Groundhog Day.

Why, you ask? Well, you might recall, don’t worry I won’t hold it against you if you don’t, last year my town’s annual Groundhog Day festival was marred by violence.

Violence at a Groundhog Day Ceremony?

What type of violence erupts at a Groundhog Day festival? I can’t blame you if you immediately thought of drunken Wisconsinites rioting because the little rodent predicted 18 more weeks of winter.

Just as an aside I Googled groundhogs to confirm they are indeed rodents and autocomplete gave me ‘edible’ and ‘good to eat,’ as suggested ways to complete my ‘are groundhogs ….’ question.

Hmmm, not exactly what I was looking for, but thanks Google. Yes, before you ask, they are edible. In fact, according the Mother Earth News site I should celebrate the next Groundhog Day by sautéing the groundhog in a little olive oil and garlic.

Anyway, back to our celebration. The violence took the form of the groundhog chomping on our mayor. Yep, bit him right on ear. Huh, swear I heard banjos playing for a minute there. Anyway, the whole incident went viral. I mean what news outlet with 5min of air to fill would pass up such wonderful filler as groundhog bites man?

Sadly, the incident, henceforth known, the incident, brought the long arm of the law down on our fair town. Seems we didn’t have a permit to keep a captive groundhog, dang, there are those annoying banjos, again.

Government orders groundhog back to the wild.

The government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to repatriate the groundhog to the wild. It was cruel, claimed a government spokesperson, to keep him in the lap of luxury. Obviously, he would be happier foraging for food and living in a burrow then living in a heated home with humans to wait on him 24/7.  

Now we have no groundhog and Groundhog Day is rapidly approaching. Cue the Home Alone Face Clap and Scream. What to do, well, Cletus we could just trap us another groundhog. Naw, we don’t want to bring Johnny Law back to our city. Oh no, we might have to cancel the festival.

Well, we can’t do that, think of the children. Imagine their dismay at not having to get up at the butt crack of dawn to see some surly rodent yanked from his cozy abode. How will the residents of this fine city know when spring is coming if the little and tasty, I might add, rodent doesn’t tell us.

One solution was to dress someone up in a groundhog costume. Of course, the city has a groundhog costume in storage; I mean, what major city doesn’t have one of those?

Shall we rent a groundhog?

I know let’s use Google. We’ll see if we can rent a groundhog.

I’ll save you the keystrokes. You can. Apparently, you can rent all manner of animals. Now, I can see lions, bears even foxes, but really renting a groundhog. Is there much of a demand for groundhogs. Even better, what is the going rate? Seeing as he is performing, does the groundhog get scale? I wonder if he has a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) card.