By Carrie Pinkard
I never even wanted to be a meteorologist.
I wanted to be an Olympic figure skater, but my dad said, “You are Punxsutawney Phil the 34238083rd and you will NOT let this family down.” So off to weather school I went.
I studied shadow puppets, sundials, and seasonal depression. And for what? Humans to respect my expert opinion one day a year?
This year is worse than any I’ve had in Philadelphia. This year, the Groundhog Day ceremony is being held at the university who won the raffle in St. Petersburg, Florida.
A man named Martin Tadlock has locked me in a crate and given me a bowl of blue Gatorade to drink. Everyone is wearing “flip-flops.” I didn’t even know humans grew hair on their toes. It’s revolting.
I’ve been waiting all morning because Tadlock kept muttering things like, “not enough press yet,” and “suck it, Tampa.”
He left me in a sunny patch near the Peter Rudy Wallace building, saying that the university already has a rodent problem, so no one should notice one more.
I’m sweating profusely and the humidity is really messing with my fur.
My cousin, the gopher from “Caddyshack,” was never treated this badly.
Finally, a group of aggressively smiley students in green jackets comes to greet me. I quickly gather that they are called “ambassadors” because they slip that word into every conversation.
One of the girls sticks her finger in my cage and I promptly bite it off. Note to self: Floridians taste like Publix subs and swamp water.
An osprey flies over with a message scribbled on a scroll in its beak and lands on the girl’s shoulder. She grabs the message from the beak and shrieks, “It’s from Tadlock, he says it’s time!”
The six ambassadors hoist my crate up over their heads and begin to carry me across campus, stepping over alligators and narrowly avoiding an oncoming trolley. I wash down the taste of the finger with more blue Gatorade.
As we get closer, I see thousands of students are circled around a statue of a bull. They’re dressed in unseemly shorts, tank tops and backward baseball caps. I can’t help but wonder: Do these people even know what winter is?
The crowd of nerds — who obviously have no Super Bowl parties to attend — begins cheering as they see me approach.
Finally, we arrive, and Tadlock takes my cage and fist bumps each ambassador before they bow and disappear into the crowd.
“For today and today only, Punxstawney Phil becomes Petersburg Phil!” he exclaims while hoisting me above his head like Simba.
I smile dutifully for the press, my teeth stained blue from the Gatorade. I wonder how much longer I’ll even have a job before PETA replaces me with an A.I. groundhog. No one’s job is safe from automation.
After the media gets their photo-op, Tadlock puts me on the ground and it’s time to make my prediction.
I climb to the top of the bull’s head and pause, channeling my inner Tonya Harding. Suddenly I leap off the head, do a flawless triple helix spin and land gracefully on my feet.
I look up into the crowd and deliver my verdict, in perfect English.
“I’ll give you a winter prediction: It’s gonna be hot, it’s gonna be humid and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.”
And the Florida crowd goes wild.
