A Look On The Lighter Side: Tracking the facts on the ground… and under it

Judy Epstein

Mr. and Mrs. Groundhog were having an argument, or as they preferred to call it, a dispute.

“You call this an early spring?” Mrs. Groundhog wanted to know. “Because I don’t! Snow every other day, and freezing nights in between… What good is it, having a herd of nosy strangers interrupting our sleep, if you can’t even get your prediction right?”

“That’s not fair!” protested her husband. “They snatched me out of a dream, shook me up, then told the whole world what I had ‘predicted’ before I could even get my eyes open! If you think it’s so easy, maybe you should do it!”

“No, thank you. Remember Staten Island Charlotte? Mayor de Blasio dropped her, one year, and before 6 weeks were out, she was dead! No, I’m happy to leave the forecasting to you. Just get it right!”

“You mean, like your college boyfriend Punxsutawney Phil? He’s oh so famous — with a success rate of a lousy 39 percent! He could do better if he flipped a coin!”

“And what are your stats, Calvin?”

“Mmmph.”

“I can’t hear you, dear. What did you say?”

“Forty five percent.”

“That’s what I thought. Not exactly setting the world on fire.”

“Of course not. That’s hard to do when it’s covered with snow.”

“You know what I mean. If we have to suffer through this insane ritual every year, let’s at least be good at it. That’s why I’ve asked my cousin to come over and coach us.”

“You mean Douglas Burroughs? Why, what’s his angle?”

“He’s just returned from the North East Regional Conference, with all the latest ideas for performance improvement. It’s all very modern.”

An overweight groundhog shuffled into the den and dropped an enormous notebook onto the burrow floor. “You’ve heard of ISO 9000, I suppose?”

“No,” said Calvin.

“Why, it’s only the latest, greatest, up-to-datest way to improve the performance of anyone’s business,” said Douglas.

“We’re not exactly a business, here…”

“Do you have a notebook, Cal, or some software?”

“Look around, Doug. We’re groundhogs! We have dirt, roots, and leaves!”

“Well, you’ll need some way to document your procedure, every year. Otherwise, how are you going to improve it?”

“I was planning on going back to sleep…”

“That’s so last month, Calvin! Now, shape up! We need someone to be the leader here, of our little group — that’s me — and somebody else to take notes. I guess that’s you, Hilda, your Calvin’s still looking a little dazed… You’ll need pen and paper.”

Hilda gave her cousin a blank look. He snapped, “Oh, for heavens sake, take mine, I never go anywhere without them. Now, let’s call this meeting to order!”

“A meeting?” said Calvin. “Is that really necessary?”

“It’s the only way, my boy! How else are you going to record your ‘lessons learned,’ your ‘after-action report’?”

“I generally just let Hilda tell me whatever I did wrong; it’s simpler.”

Douglas was unimpressed. “Hilda, have you got the metrics for the last ten years?”

“Right here. We’re batting a solid 45 percent, which puts us better than Punxsutawney, but worse than Staten Island. Even without Charlotte they’ve managed to hit 82 percent!”

“And what is your plan for improvement?”

“I don’t have one. That’s why you’re here.”

“I have an idea,” says Calvin.

“You do?” His wife and her cousin both turn to him in surprise.

“Yes, I do. I vote that, since he knows so much, we turn the job over to Douglas here. Then we can see how his ‘metrics’ turn out!”

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea!” says Douglas, and he bustles off.

Hilda turns to her husband with a frown: “That’s a rotten trick to play on anyone — especially a relative! Just because you want to be left alone…”

But Calvin didn’t hear a word she said. He was already fast asleep.

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