Bess Kalb
Appearances
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Dear Mayor Adams, I'm the Groundhog. My name is Susan. I'm nine years old. I have 48 children. None of them are potty trained. All of them need braces. Their fathers are always digging and never helping. All eight of my nipples are unrecognizable. I haven't ever taken a shower. And I'm at the end of my goddamn rope.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
You call it Groundhog Day, but have you ever considered what I, the groundhog, actually want? Do you even know who I am, besides some nameless creature you can foist in the air for a photo op? Do you have any idea what I sacrifice for you all?
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Because when I think about it, from the time I turned two and started having litters of tiny hairless babies, I have been expected every year to decide the fate of the northern hemisphere, of the planet. And not that you have time to even look it up between all your various staged perp walks, but I'm supposed to hibernate from October to April. From October to April.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
That's when the rest of my family sleeps, and it's supposed to be when I am finally able to get some rest. Those months, I'm supposed to be out cold, like you, one Valium deep in a lay-flat business class seat on Turkish Airlines. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to be me? 48 children. And they all co-sleep, judge me. So I'm kicked by 192 tiny feet all night, every night.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
And yet, the first week of February, you and your mayor friends are going to yank me out of my burrow. Because, surprise, nobody knows how to do anything for five goddamn months without waking up mom. So, will there be six more weeks of winter? Did you see your shadow? Yeah. I see my shadow every time I look in a mirror because I am a shadow of my former self. They never even ask me if I saw it.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
They just kind of presume whether or not I saw my shadow based on whether I wrinkle my snout at the ground. This whole holiday, which is supposed to be about me, is predicated on a group of mouth-breathing men in top hats deciding whether or not I was capable of seeing my own shadow. And then they hold me up and shout in my face and then blind me with flashbulbs, but I don't feel seen at all.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
And I never get an apology. And I never get a thank you. And by the way, I want everyone to stop calling me a groundhog. A groundhog? That's not even a species. It's an insult. It's calling me dirt pig. Did you know in Canada I'm called a marmot? That's dignified. That's chic. That's apres-ski. Okay, I hear myself. I know how I sound. I sound exactly like my mother and her mother before her.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
I come from a proud line of groundhogs who have done this job year after year. And I'm not here to complain. No. Whatever I say, I know it's not going to make a difference. It doesn't matter. I can play my role. I can smile and go through the motions, and for one February morning, let you have a moment of pure escapism. However dumb and degrading and exhausting as it is for me. So go ahead.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
Play the trombones. Unfurl your little scroll and have your weird rodent fortune-telling pageant. Because you need it.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
So send in the clown, and when you lift me, your groundhog, high into the air, I will look into the crowd and see your vulnerable, yearning human faces staring back at me, standing out in the cold just desperate to see something that breaks up the grey monotony of your repetitive lives.
This American Life
853: Groundhog Day
trudging in your little puffer jackets, staring at your phones to go sit at a desk and eat a salad every day, and then you look up and there I am, the groundhog. When you cheer for me, you are cheering for your own hope that if this ridiculous tradition can endure, maybe you can too. May it be a happy Groundhog Day for us all. Sincerely, Susan Hogg Kaplowitz.