Thanks all. 
DaveBear: Ah yes, interesting dissertation on the groundhog. I believe you’re on to something there - and given my extreme aversion to winter, I could certainly be convinced to hop on the groundhog-skin hat fashion craze. If there isn’t one, now is the time to start.
So, I’m hanging out at a friend’s apartment the Saturday before “Da Blizzard From Hell.” We party a bit late, so I crash his couch; I wake up Sunday morning magically transported to the Yukon. I’m quite baffled by this as, although I had quite a bit to drink the night before, I’ve never heard of someone being shanghaied to the Yukon. Sure, it happend to Buck the dog in “Call of the Wild”, but not to humans I wouldn’t think. No profit in it. I write it off as a hangover-induced hallucination, and go back to sleep.
I wake up to discover that no, I have not been shanghaied, but I am quite snowed in. I’m trapped in a tiny apartment with my friend, his girlfriend, and their 2 cats Yoda and Bart. Yoda has just gone into her first heat, which she is quite loudly vocal about. “Give me PLEASURE!” she screams at 2 minute intervals. Incessantly. Bart, being a young kitty, attempts to help Yoda out but alas, he hasn’t figured out how this whole thing works yet and fails miserably. Repeatedly. This is amusing to watch for the first few minutes, but eventually becomes just another bit of torture.
After a few hours of this, I begin alternating between attempting to convince my friend that Home-Spaying is a viable alternative, and begging him to find a pencil and hook the poor kitty up. I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Apparently he didn’t like either option.
Monday arrives. I’m tired from lack of sleep, as Yoda’s quest for a booty-call is not constrained by the concept of night and day. I’m out of beer. I have cabin fever from hell. It’s time to go. NOW. I don’t care how. Let’s dig the damned car out.
No shovel.
“It never snows this much around here” he says.
“Well, great. What DO you have?”
“Um…these.” and he produces 2 empty buckets of kitty-litter.
“Fine, fine, I’ll scoop with my hands if I have to, let’s go!”
2-1/2 hours later, after much scooping, cursing, and hand-beating (I don’t own gloves, of course…what need does a Louisiana boy have of gloves?), we get the car out. We head towards my house. We lose the road, get stuck in a drift, and have to re-dig the car out. TWICE. Did I mention we were using empty kitty-litter buckets?
I finally get home. I chug my last 6-pack, crawl into bed, and hide until Wenesday, having fitful dreams of horny cats rubbing their tails in my face and wailing the wails of the eternally tortured.
So, yes. I’m with ya. Let’s begin the groundhog eradication. NOW. There is no time to lose. Next winter is a-comin’, and I don’t think I’ll survive it.
–IDB
