While the inspiration behind one truly brilliant comedy, the Groundhog Day rituals celebrated in several cities (it's not just Punxsutawney, folks) across North America are little more than an annual lesson in futile perfunctoriness. The groundhog — wherever it may be — is declared by humans to have seen to have not seen its shadow, something that has ultimately no bearing on the weather or the arrival of Spring, which starts on a predetermined date regardless of any marmot-related developments.
Perhaps aware of this, and deeply surly about the empty routine, a certain groundhog has struck back against the tradition, attempting a daring escape and biting a member of the attendant, nattering press at a Groundhog Day celebration.
Shubenacadie Sam, the prognosticating groundhog located in Shubenacadie Wildlife Park in the town of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, Canada, was met on Friday morning by a gaggle of local press and spectators, eager to hear his take on the coming season. Incidentally, being located in Nova Scotia means that Sam is the first groundhog to offer a prediction about the coming of spring every year, hours before the more famous and storied Punxsutawney Phil "delivered" his forecast.
This year, as in years before, Sam differed with Phil and "predicted" an early end to Winter by not returning to his shelter.
Indeed, Sam went so far as to attempt an escape from his enclosure altogether. Once reporters were let into his pen, Sam did what many celebrities and politicians do when confronted by the press: He made a run for it.
As noted above, Sam then turned on one reporter — CBC's Brett Ruskin — and bit the member of the fourth estate when the correspondent made himself the story and tried to frustrate the groundhog's bid for freedom. Honestly, good for Sam.
"Sam's handlers from the Dept. of Natural Resources say I shouldn't need a shot. (I'm not the first to be bitten, apparently.)," Ruskin said. He claimed that his "front teeth are growing and there's fur all over me now," which smells like fake news.
Despite this moment of defiance and righteous, justified fury, Sam did not find freedom this Groundhog Day and, alas for him, will most likely be forced to repeat this charade again and again on to death, like a hairy Sisyphus. Truly, there is no justice.
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