Day of the Groundhog

            I woke up promptly at seven in some nondescript capital. My room was such a ‘tight fit’ at the ‘Hedgehog Hilton’ (Where Everything’s A Little Small.) that I’d shifted the furniture around during my short stay. I had to move the couch to get out of the room. I left a phonebook shredded in the corner. At least I don’t steal towels. I went up to level one and had a continental breakfast of carnations and scrambled eggs.  

            A taxi was waiting for me, and not a word was spoken. Everything had been arranged. I still have clumps of soil from Ulan Bator on my pads, and some fiber left over from the Pampas between a molar or two. All that means is that I don’t floss often. I’ve taken a dunk in a few of the known seas. Made friends with the jellyfish. Yeah, jellyfish are real friendly.

            We proceeded in silence to the international airport. Walking out of the hotel, I’d seen coverage of preparations in Punxsutawney on a television there in the lobby. I’d forgotten that it was ‘Groundhog Day’. I shook my head. It’s a gig, I guess, but I don’t see the purpose of it.

            “Six more weeks of winter,” and “Spring is just around the corner” is the same thing! It’s just like people to make a silly day of it and not consult us. Why not just leave it in your mind, something cute- a groundhog coming out of a hole, eagerly checking to see if he has a shadow. We’re cool with that, but people always have to take things past the conceptual stage. I guess it all comes down to them grasping for some sense of control. They need to think a little more. We groundhogs have been philosophers since a few epochs back. What do you think we’re doing as we nibble on a weed by the side of the road? Not thinking?

            I knew what Phil was thinking:

            “Say what you will, that I can forecast the weather or no, but it isn’t my day. My day will come. Nice hats, by the way.”

           

            Anyway, you can see why I committed myself fully to the cause. My education began with my debut at people functions, which I would crash to requisition garnish. My entrance would certainly be documented as I entered, by security cameras, and most times it ‘went viral’, which helped my handlers keep an eye on me.

            I would pick up a lot of good information at people functions, like, how recently they’d changed the locks at the Environmental Protection Agency, or whether what they had in their drinks came straight from the Ross Ice Shelf. I’d try to blend in and cadge celery from Bloody Marys, and kale from the sides of trays. They’d say, “Wow! You look just like Burgess Meredith!”, and I’d be all, like, “Yeah. And you’re Patricia Neal. Now, cough up the olive.”

            I kept an eye on people there, and what I saw would curl anyone’s pelt. They gave me garnish because they were kind, yes. And also because I’m cute, and they value their ankles.

 

            Yeah, sometimes I consider retiring and going 9 to 5. In a four pod den adjacent to the house foundation. Wife and 4.5 kits. But, the domestic tranquility is only a foot deep. A backhoe could ruin everything in minutes.

            Not for me. No, I’m the kind of guy who has to keep my paws moving. Assignment to assignment, to the four corners of the world. The variety of food is a plus. Bamboo shoot, taro root, and the tulip.

 

            If all went well at the airport, an acquaintance of mine, Iris, would be able to get back to her family and munch on the spring lichen. I’m a temperate-zone kind of groundhog. I didn’t know lichen can be ‘nouveau’, but it can, I guess.

            Everything had been sorted out. My chief had told me the week before, when I was in Helsinki:

            “Iris is at the Nondescript Capital, and she needs some help getting out before they have the ‘Turning of the Lichen’ back home in Espera. Something about a flower bed.”

            “You mean ‘The Gladiola Affair’.”

            “Yeah!” Chief said. “They’ve given it a name?”

            “It’s all over the news here.”

            “Just like you to keep up on Iris. I think you’re obsessed with her.”

            “Iris wouldn’ta torn up that flower bed! That ain’t her MO.”

            “Like I said, you’re obsessed,” Chief told me. “We need your help, but I suggest that you don’t meet her before. Don’t even look at her!”

            We just had to get her past the ‘Small Diplomatic Mammal’ gate and onto the tarmac. She stepped out of her taxi, surrounded by furry handlers, and approached the ground terminal. I looked at Iris there in the drive, and it all came back.

 

            Groundhogs don’t know from ‘treaties’ and ‘accords’, but Iris and I got along well when our respective missions would bring us together. But, I still didn’t quite know exactly where we stood.

            If we met at a mall, she would insist that we go to the Rainforest Café and tell them that we were nutria, so we would get free dessert. It usually worked.

            In Berlin we danced the night away, and then she left my toothbrush at the lobby desk overnight, so I just wouldn’t be able to catch the 8:10 Marmot Air flight out of Frankfurt and follow her on to Prague. No self-respecting groundhog would venture out without fresh breath.

            The last time I saw her was in Tuvalu, where we frolicked in the surf, and then she had them put mango in my Mai Tai. While I was indisposed, she hired a boat and made off across the strait with the microfilm. She knows how mango affects me.

             

            So, yeah. You got it out of me. I can’t look at Iris, yeah. I can’t look at Iris for the same reason I can’t listen to ‘Muskrat Love’. The memories.

            I stood by. My taxi, and driver, waited. Iris’s handlers waited. The guard frowned over her papers. Everybody was waiting, with me without a root to chew on. I went closer.

            “Everything else seems to be in order,” the guard with brush-cut whiskers told me. “She has a flight. She has the ticket. She has the papers, but they are not diplomatic papers.”

            I stepped up.

            “So, she’s not a diplomat. But you’re gonna open that gate.”

            He was surprised.

            “I will?”

            “Yeah, Mac. I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve got a crack in the slab, here. Running under the post. Water’s pooling there, and everything’s beginning to rot. You know, I’ve got a chipmunk friend in the construction field that I could call for you. Like many, he’s had a lot of success in construction…”

            “A chipmunk?”

            “Yes.”

            “Other than their own dens, chipmunks tear things apart! They charge for estimates, ask for a huge down payment, then they just tear things apart and then they ask for more money.”

            “Yes.”

            “We’d wind up having to bring beavers in!”

            “Of course! Biff’s found that he can save a lot on materials that way. He’s on vacation in the Alps right now, but I’m sure he can have a crew here within minutes…”

            The guard thought. I couldn’t read his mind, but I knew that we were on the same page.

            “Either you let Iris through, or I’ll call my friend Biff. He’ll send Curly, Horatio, Liz and Mel in, and they’ll get crackin’ on an estimate…”

            “Oh, I understand. Either I cave in to your threat and let the lady through, or you send a merry band of your striped friends over here to tear the gate apart. It looks like I’m screwed one way or another, but I must do my duty. The lady is not a diplomat.”

             And then, Iris asked him,

            “Aren’t we all diplomats at some time or another?”

           

            Iris walked through the gate and onto the tarmac, past the long, thin, sooty snowdrifts, and out of my life again. The PA went: ‘Atemson ease. Ern wally erphkin snarch warch’, and jet engines cried: ‘Sweeeeeeee!’ You know the tune.

            Another groundhog might have followed her. Another groundhog would’ve kept her there somehow. Heck, I don’t know. But, I didn’t used to have these thoughts. The fact is, I’m getting soft. As soft as cattail taproot in September.