Sam Venable

Special Contributor

Dear Human Beings: I am your local groundhog. And today is what you interfering idiots insist in calling “Groundhog Day.”

For the record, I don’t have a formal name, so feel free to call me “Gus” or “Clyde” or anything else—just as long as you lay off that stupid “Punxsutawney” nonsense. Geez Louise!

Do I ever get tired of hearing that! Those Pennsylvanians must really be humor-impaired if they think “Punxsutawney” is funny.

You want funny? I’ll tell you funny. It occurred a couple of years ago when my New York cousin, the so-called “Staten Island Chuck,” took a chunk out of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s hand.

Ha-ha-ha. Hey, Bloomberg! Just because you’re a billionaire city-slicker politician, you can’t get away with stickin’ your paws inside an animal’s cage! I laughed till I nearly passed out.

Anyhow, I wish you folks would realize I’ve got nothing whatsoever to do with the weather.

Never have, never will. It’s all I can do to pry my eyelids open this time of year, let alone see my shadow or not see my shadow and predict whether spring is around the corner.

How’d you like to be shaken from slumber and have a microphone stuck in your face?

Even before you can wash out your mouth with Scope or take a sip of coffee, some goober is running a video camera or snapping still photos.

Y’all never heard of making an appointment and knocking politely?

Furthermore, what’s all this stuff about seeing my shadow? Who am I, Susie Sunshine?

Look, people: I’m just as sick of winter as you are. I don’t like snow. I don’t like ice. For that matter, I don’t even like the idea of burying in the ground.

You ever tried sleeping under a mound of clammy dirt? Well, that’s what hibernation is all about, and take it from an expert: It ain’t no picnic. Except on the warmest of days, I hardly ever stop shivering.

My idea of a perfect seasonal hiatus would be to hop an airplane for Key West in early November and not come back until late April.

Gimme sun, surf, and palm trees, baby! Veggie juice and three meals of the most-tender Argentine grass flown in daily… Now, that’s livin’!

But no. I gotta stick around here and have you goof balls hang on every word you think I have to say about what’s going to happen.

So since you insist, here’s my official prognostication for the next six weeks. Write it down in big letters: I DON’T KNOW!

I don’t know if this awful snow business is about to end.

I don’t know if the mercury will plummet into the teens or rocket into the 70s.

I don’t know when spring is gonna arrive any more than I know if the stock market will soar or nosedive.

For cryin’ out loud, I’m a rodent! I have yellow, bulging front teeth! I’m hairy as an ape.

My gut sags worse than the economy!

You want a meteorological forecast? Then turn on the Weather Channel, for Pete’s sake!

No, it won’t necessarily be any more accurate than anything I can offer, but at least the announcers have whiter, straighter teeth. Their tummies are tighter, too. Even Al Roker’s.

Leave me alone or you’re in for a double dose of what Cousin Chuck gave Bloomberg.

Savvy?

Good day and good riddance.

Not-so-sincerely,

Your Grumpy Neighborhood G. H.

Sam Venable is an author, stand-up comedian, and humor columnist for the Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel. He may be reached at mahv@outlook.com.