Groundhog Day 2020

News headline: “Groundhog strike enters 5^th week without any end in sight”

If you have been reading the “Critter Times” then you are aware that the Groundhog Union went on strike the first of the year demanding more than one day of work per year. The strike has been dragging on without resolution for weeks, neither side willing to budge even the length of their own shadow. It was beginning to look like Groundhog Day was going to be cancelled. The Chipmunk Union saw a golden opportunity and opened negotiations with the desperate Groundhog Day organizers. The lead negotiator (who comes from the Woodpile and who holds an MBA from the Ferengi Business School) cunningly agreed to one day of work in exchange for 50 pounds of shelled sunflower seeds for each groundhog impersonator – a win-win deal for everyone. The contract was quickly drawn up and signed. A good deal for the chipmunk workers? Absolutely! For us Chipmunks 50 pounds of shelled sunflower seeds is like a human winning the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. It is a lifetime supply of food!

Rascal is Woodpile’s local bum. He is constantly “borrowing” seeds for dinner and a few bucks for a drink at the tavern with all sorts of promises about repaying everyone when he lands his first job. Ten years later, he still hasn’t gotten his first job. The other day, he wandered into the union office to chat up the pretty secretary and to con some innocent ‘munk out of his hard earned seeds. The union boss steps out his office and grabs him by the whiskers and is ready to throw him out on his tail. Then it dawns on the boss that he can solve two problems with one ‘munk. He gives Rascal his first job!

I was hoping to sleep in after another day of loafing around doing nothing. But the union boss made it explicitly clear that I needed to be at my burrow entrance on Sunday February 2 at 9 am or bad things would happen. It took me and hour to burrow my way to the surface to get to my new job. I hope I am not late.

Wow, about fifty people have gathered to welcome me on my first day on the new job. This is encouraging. No one is ever nice to me.

This is strange, everyone keeps asking me if I can see my shadow.

[Later that day] My burrow entrance is a mess after the stampede of chipmunks, squirrels, birds, and humans showed up with a gazillion I.O.U.s I have written over the years.  No one warned me that being rich and famous was such hard work.