This American Life - 853: Groundhog Day

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

People stuck in a loop, trying to find their way out. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks to B.A. Parker about her birthday tradition. (6 minutes)Act One: Producer Aviva DeKornfeld speaks with a father and daughter who have been playing the same game for 25 years. (9 minutes)Act Two: Talia Augustidis asks a single question over and over. (5 minutes)Act Three: Editor David Kestenbaum speaks with Jeff Permar, who is trapped in a Groundhog Day situation — with an actual groundhog! (9 minutes)Act Four: Parking in a big city can be a real pain. Producer Valerie Kipnis speaks with a man who has taken it upon himself to try to mitigate the weekly hassle. (14 minutes)Act Five: Short fiction from Bess Kalb about a groundhog named Susan, who has her own opinions about the holiday named after her species. (7 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

It's a little ritual that Parker invented for herself. It's always the same. Every year. Around this time of year. February 2nd, to be exact. February 2nd, which is Groundhog Day. At 10.30 at night, I turn on the movie Groundhog Day. Rita, I'm reliving the same day over and over. Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day of course is the 1993

Bill Murray comedy about a self-centered weatherman who gets trapped in time, repeating the same day again and again. A day where he covers a Groundhog Day ceremony on local TV. Once a year the eyes of the nation turn to this tiny hamlet in western Pennsylvania to watch a master at work. The master? Punxsutawney Phil, the world's most famous weatherman, the groundhog, who as legend has it can predict the coming of an early spring. But Murray spends the whole film repeating February 2nd. Well it's groundhog day again. Until finally at the end of the film, he unsticks himself in time and wakes up on the next day. Again, here's Parker.

I time it up so that when it's around midnight, when it's February 3rd in the world, it's February 3rd in the movie. So when it's February 3rd in the movie, it becomes February 3rd in the world, which is my birthday. So I do it as like, I'm slowly boiling myself into my birthday. Barker says she's not a big birthday person, but this is a little thing she's done for herself to mark the day ever since she was 22. I first saw Groundhog Day on a film class.

I was in a program where I was like the only black person, the only woman. Everyone was 10 years older than me. So. This was like film studies? This is film school, yeah. Okay. But so it was just, it was a very lonely place.

So she created this birthday movie night for herself. To do alone. That she still does alone every year with the film Groundhog Day. That she's going to do this year for the 16th time. And maybe you think that means that she's really into the film Groundhog Day. Nope. I don't love the movie. The movie's fine. Like it's okay. I don't mind it. I don't find it, it's not my brand of humor. Also like it's, I don't know, in the 21st century, some of the stuff is fairly problematic.

So like for instance? Well there's whole sequences where, Phil Conner, who is Bill Murray's character, is trying to seduce two women. And he keeps repeating the day so he can like ascertain information to seduce two women. And he keeps repeating the day so he can like ascertain information to seduce them. Can I buy you a drink? Okay.

Sweet vermouth in the rocks with a twist, please. So it's not known, it's not like known consent. Right, so he's tricking them into it. He's tricking them into hooking up with him. Can I buy you a drink? Okay. Sweet vermouth rocks with a twist please. That's my favorite drink. Mine too. It always makes me think of Rome. The way the sun hits the buildings in the afternoon. Parker says there are lots of films she'd much rather be watching once a year, year after year.

Like her favorite film, Point Break, the Keanu Reeves surfing film. That I could, I can watch forever and not be mad about like the, that's fine. But the, like the past, however long years I've watched Groundhog Day, again, it's fine. It's fine. But you do it every year. Maybe I don't totally understand why I still do it, like for so long, but it works for me. Like it's a thing that I can do for myself by myself.

And the repetition is comforting, even if I'm forcing myself to do it. Like I'm not a person who's good at repetition. Like I ADHD, my brain's all over the place. But February 2nd, 10.30 p.m., I can turn on Groundhog Day. I know what I'm getting into. And then I am absorbed by the movie and then all of a sudden it ends and I go, oh, that's right, it's after midnight, I was born.

There's a comfort in that. But the thing that makes Phil comforting is the repetition and it's a movie about how awful repetition is. Yeah, there's an irony to it, I'm aware. But I like the repetition, Groundhog Day, the repetition is awful, but the end result of the repetition isn't half bad. Like he, like Phil totally improves himself. He learns like how to be a considerate human being.

One of the last things he says to Andy McDowell in the movie is like, what can I do for you? What a day on our program for Groundhog Day, the power of repetition. How it can be utterly devastating to do something you love dozens of times or hundreds of times and you can rob it of all feeling. You can turn it into drudgery. But repetition can also do the opposite. The more you do something, the more you can find in it and live in it. I've said these next few words hundreds of times, and I said them today,

excited for what is to come this hour. From WBEZ Chicago, this is American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Stay with us. This message comes from Wyse, the app for doing things in other currencies. Sending or spending money abroad, hidden fees may be taking a cut. With Wyse, you can convert between up to 40 currencies at the mid-market exchange rate. Visit Wyse.com.

TNCs apply. Hey, it's Ira with a quick message here in the break. The other day, two colleagues and I went into the studio and we listened to the very first pilot episode from This American Life. This is a reel-to-reel tape. Oh my God. I hadn't heard it actually since 1995. We had no idea what to expect.

And it kind of blew our minds just how weird it was. There were found tapes. I don't want to see you cut your toenails. For god's sake, shut up little man. And performance art. Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday, And just some very bizarre pacing.

But like how many minutes are we in to the story? We're 16 and a quarter minutes at least. I was really surprised what this pilot was like. Very avant-garde. Okay, well let's find out what's going to happen. And I mention all this because if you sign up as a life partner, you can hear this bonus episode and many, many more that we've made. Plus you get our show without any ads.

You get hundreds of favorite episodes that show up right in your podcast feed. And most of all, you help us keep our show going. If you've been thinking about joining, try it out. Go to thisamericanlife.org slash life partners. The link is also in the show notes. All right. Let's go back to the show. This American Life, Act One.

Will you still slug me tomorrow? Sometimes choosing to repeat the same moment over and over again is an act of love. Aviva De Kornfeld has this true life example. Eviva De Kornfeld Brydie and her dad Bryn have been playing the same game for decades. It's called a pinch and a punch. Bryn De Kornfeld The rules of the game are you say pinch and a punch first day of the month, no returns.

Obviously the no returns is important. When I was little, when we started doing this, we would, you know, gently, of course, actually do the little pinch and a punch first day of the month. One of them would actually pinch and punch the other. But over the years, as the way we've done it has become more inventive and stylish, and now that we live in different countries, obviously the physical element is kind of removed. So it is often just something written down or over the phone.

OK, so it can be any form. It just has to reach the other person before their pinch and punch reaches you. That's right. They first started playing this game when Bridie was really little. She can't really remember ever not playing it. It was just one of the many games they played. Brynn traveled a lot for work when Brydie was young, and the games were a way for them to stay connected while he was gone. But pinch and punch, this

is the game that stuck. It kept going. For years. It really leveled up when Brydie was in secondary school. One day, when Brydie was 14, I got pulled out of class and sent to the principal's office. So I immediately assumed I was in deep trouble. And I was a very good kid at school. I never did anything naughty. So going to the principal's office was, you know, really out of character. So I was immediately terrified. So I walked to the principal's office and there's the principal.

There's this other guy holding a fancy looking envelope. I open the envelope, message for Bridie Connell and it's pinch and a punch first day of the month, no returns. And I think at that point in dad's mind, I'm pretty sure he's gone, okay, well, I've escalated this game to the highest degree, she's never going to come back from that. But I think he forgets that he has passed on his extreme competitiveness to me. And from then it kind of kicked off.

These days, now that Brydie's grown up and moved out, most of the pinches and punches are low key. A phone call, a text. Sometimes Brynner Brydie will try to disguise the sentence in an email sent to the whole family. Brydie says her dad has learned to not open anything from her that's sent just to him on the first of the month. So month in and month out Bryn and Brydie are living in this very specific type of loop where in order for them to stay in the loop they have to keep changing it, inventing new

ways to win. Once, a few years ago, Brydie had to get jaw surgery on the first of the month. Her dad was her next of kin, and so she mocked up a fake medical form for her dad to sign, and convinced the nurse to tuck her fake form in with the rest. Brydie proudly won that month. That was kind of a famous win for her, actually. Because while Brydie wins more often, her dad's wins tend to be more memorable. His have more flair. Like, once he convinced Brydie's best friend to interrupt her own wedding to deliver a pinch and punch. He even got Brydie while she was on live radio. The family is from New Zealand, but Brydie lives

and works in Sydney, where she was a guest on this weekly local radio show. And Bryden conspired with the host to get her on air. Hey Brydie, I got an email today from New Zealand. I don't often get emails from New Zealand. But thankfully you have also been trained in the internet. Was it from Mum or Dad? Do you know a man called Bryn Connell?

Bryn Connell? Okay, that is my dad. Yep. We had a long discussion about the seasons, days of the month, New Zealand time being... Oh no, you're dead! A pinch and a punch for the first of the month. He says on his understanding, with New Zealand... Over time, the rules have evolved. No middle of the night calls.

You have to respect time zones. Also, the game is formally suspended on New Year's Eve, since Brady and Brynn would hijack the countdown for their game, and according to Brady's mom kept quote ruining the holiday. Brady says her dad escalated the game to a whole new level in 2019. She was flying home to New Zealand for her cousin Jeremy's 30th birthday party. The flight was on May 1st, very early in the morning. And as you know, we have rules about really, really, really early morning wake-up calls and pinch and a punch calls are not allowed and they haven't been allowed for years. So I thought,

I'm just going to have to wait. I'm just going to have to hope that by the time I arrive in New Zealand, which will still be fairly early, that dad's forgotten and I can get in there and win for the month of May. And then, you know, that was all I thought about it. And then I got onto the plane, I boarded, I took my seat, and I sat down on the plane, and then about five minutes later, while everyone's still, you know, filing into the plane, the cabin manager comes up to me and says, Oh, excuse me, Miss Connell, you've been moved.

The flight attendant tells her she's getting bumped up to premium economy and brings her to her new seat. And then he said, oh, by the way, I've got something for you. And he handed me an envelope. And I just thought, oh, maybe I'm about to be, maybe this is part of the premium economy service. Maybe it's a menu. I don't know what it is. As you can tell, I am not used to that premium economy life. And I opened the envelope and it was a letter from my dad saying, I hope you have a great

flight, I can't wait to see you when you land. And also just something to reflect on while you're winging your way across the Tasman, pinching a punch for his day of the month no returns. She spent the rest of the flight thinking about how she would get him back. Luckily for Bridie, Air New Zealand is apparently extremely into pranks and offered to help. So together, they made a fake Father's Day themed ad for the airline. Air New Zealand actually got real pilots and flight attendants to appear in this short video, which Brady wrote. And then she got her mom to show it to her dad.

It's Father's Day in New Zealand, and we want to say thanks to all the amazing dads out there. Thank you. To start it off, thank you for being such a wonderful dad. Well, that's generic. This, of course, is Brynconnell. The video starts out thanking dads for doing regular dad stuff. But as it progresses, it starts getting more and more specific, naming things Brynn has actually done.

Yeah, thank you for building me a fort when I was young. I think I did that. And they were saying things like, thank you for your really bad dad jokes. Someone would say, I go, oh, I do that. Thank you for cooking such great roast dinners I'll do that as well I was naive we love your generosity your spirit and then a female pilot came on and said oh that means you Bryn Connell yes you Bryn Connell you're always playing jokes and then when the video changes and it becomes clear that they're talking to him, he just

obviously does not compute for like 10 seconds. And then he was like, what? What? What? What? Hang on. There are 12 firsts of the month each year, and Brydie and Brynn have been playing this game for roughly 25 years, so they've done hundreds of pinches and punches at this point.

The thing about having such a long-running game, though, is that life happens all around it, all the good and bad. A few years ago, Brydie lost someone very close to her. Over the period of this tragedy, the first of the month rolled around. And I thought, should I do something or not? Because she was feeling very bruised and lonely and desperate. And I chose to and it was just something that she could reach out to and go, yeah, dad's here. It's okay. And she just came out to me later and gave me a big cuddle and said,

that's just what I needed. Thank you, daddy. And she only calls me daddy on very rare occasions. Hmm. And I can't remember what it was. I think it was just something fairly benign that month, but it was, I'm in your corner honey, I'm still here. There's a lie built into the premise of Pinch and Punch. It's when they say no returns. They say it every month. And every month, they return. I'll repeat the question. So our show today is about Groundhog Day and what repeating the same

thing over and over can accomplish or reveal. And I don't want to say much about this next item before it starts except to say that it is a common thing when radio reporters sit down to interview somebody. We have to set the record volume properly so we need the interviewee to just say some words about something while we set recording levels. And so we'll ask them some kind of neutral question to describe the route they took to work that morning, or what they had for breakfast. This comes from radio producer, Talia Ougasteris. This needs to be actually quite close to you.

Okay. Can you tell me what you have for breakfast so I can check the levels? Yes, the answer is probably I can't remember. Oh no porridge porridge porridge and blueberries. You always have the same thing for breakfast. It's not hard to remember. Okay porridge and blueberries. Do you want to tell me what you've had for breakfast this morning? Oh, if I can remember. Oh yes, I had, I had... As a hint. Porridge. Yeah, it's over there.

Porridge and delicious berries. Do you want to tell me what you had for breakfast this morning? Honestly I can't remember. Oh yes I can. It's porridge as usual. I'm just going to check the levels so do you remember what we do to check the levels? No. What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Uh, porridge. And berries. So, okay. We just need to check the levels. Do you remember what we do to check the levels? What? We talked about what I had for breakfast? Yes. Okay. So I had...

Did we have it for breakfast? Anyway, it was lovely. Anyway, it was lovely. Just a little spoonful. Sorry it just takes so long. No, that's okay. Let me just check the levels. What did you have for breakfast this morning? Same as usual. Which of course I can't remember.

It's in your mouth. What does it taste like then? It tastes absolutely delicious. I'm flattered. What did you have for breakfast this morning? I had... I had... I was going to say breakfast. I had um,

wait a sec, I'm so sorry. That's okay. Don't worry if you can't remember we'll just um, do you want a different question? Yes. What did you have for breakfast today? I probably had porridge and stuff. Yeah, nice things. You didn't eat much of it today. Do you want to... Should we do that before we start? Just try a bit more? No, I can't. Okay. No.

Let's start then. Sorry. It's a bit quick. I might not manage this. Maybe we shouldn't do the recording today. Oh dear. Oh dear, okay. Act III, Raiders of the Lost Chard. Sometimes the repeating situation that you find yourself stuck in every day is something you do not like and you want it to end. And I guess like, you know, Bill Murray, who is caught on repeat in that old movie, you

have to strategize and figure out how to minimize the unpleasantness. David Kirstenbaum has this story about that. The garden was a thing of beauty. Jeff had just moved into a new house in Middletown, Delaware, kind of a rural area. House did not have a garden, so he built one. Jeff is a do-it-yourself kind of guy, handy with stuff, fixing cars, things around the house. The garden he makes is pretty big.

He turns over all the soil, plants rows of seeds, takes a long time. It's really pristine, you know, everything's labeled, backs up to a field, so it's pretty good scenery. Sometimes I'll just sit out there and just relax, look around, look at the different plants growing. You know, it's really peaceful. But gardening, as the writer Margaret Atwood has noted, is not a rational act. In nature, plants do not grow in tidy, pristine labeled rows.

In fact, nature does not care at all about your little setup. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Jeff was on vacation when it happened. A friend was watering his garden for him. And he had called me and he said, hey man, something's like eating all these plants. Jeff was on vacation when it happened. A friend was watering his garden for him. And he had called me and he said, hey man, something's like eating all these plants.

And he showed me a picture and I was like, oh man, that's horrible. So when I came back, I had noticed that, you know, my sweet potato plants were pretty much gone. Not just the sweet potatoes. Like, you know, there were stuff, chunks off the plants, off the fruits, you know, the vegetables, the tomatoes had chunks in them.

Cucumbers had chunks in them. Chunks eaten out of them. Yeah. Just chunks missing, um, randomly throughout, throughout the whole garden. It was like a selective process. Jeff is really upset. He has no idea what is eating his vegetables. So he sets out a trap.

One of those cage things that closes when an animal goes inside. And how did that work? It's a complete failure. Goes out to check on the trap, empty. Food in it, untouched. What is eating the garden? Jeff runs through a list of possibilities.

Thought it would be a deer, maybe birds, rabbits, squirrels, or even a neighbor or human. Oh, a neighbor. You never know, right? I mean, it could be anybody. Yeah, but one bite out of a tomato? I wouldn't put it past them. Okay, I never lived where you live in Delaware, so I'll trust you.

Jeff thinks enough with this. It really is driving him kind of mad. So he gets a motion detector camera. He borrows it from his brother, uses electrical tape to tape it to this old bucket he has, and sticks it in the garden. It's one of those cameras that sends videos to your phone. So Jeff waits. He does not have to wait long.

I'm at work. I actually was like right at lunchtime. And I looked right at my phone because I got the notification. I was like really eager, like surprised. I went and I checked it. And I just want to pause here to describe the cinematic perfection of this next moment. What Jeff sees at first in the video is nothing. Like the camera is triggered off something blowing in the breeze. You see a log in the background and the garden fence. And then a groundhog pops up. With what appears to be a cucumber in its paws, rapidly chewing. It is staring right into the camera, head on. Takes up the whole frame.

So close, you can hear it chewing. Really funny to see. He's just got this look on his face. It was almost as if he was saying, yeah, it's me. I'm the one eating your garden up. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? So at first when I saw it was a groundhog, I was like, oh, they dig.

So I was like, I'll put the logs around. Like around the base of the fencing? Around the base, maybe that'll help. And no, it didn't. And I was like, well, let me try to get a little bit more slick and I would put like garden boundary, like landscape boundary, I would put it under the ground about like maybe like a foot. So it'd be like a wall almost underground and so if even if they did dig they'd hit the wall right

and you'd think they would stop right? No. They just keep digging down until they got under it and then came back out the other side like it wasn't even there. These are the kind of things I was dealing with. Along with seeing him in the camera every day. Every day it was get up drive to work alert on phone. Groundhog. Get up drive to work alert on phone. Groundhog. The only thing that changed was the image. Groundhog with one of Jeff's tomatoes. Groundhog with zucchini. Groundhog with corn.

Never peppers somehow. Apparently he didn't like peppers. He's in a Groundhog Day situation with an actual groundhog. Who, if he has to admit, is kind of cute. So I said, you know what? I'm going to name you Chunk. It seemed very fitting because he was taking chunks out of the vegetables. I feel like once you name the groundhog,

you're crossing some kind of line, you know? I think you lost in that moment. Probably. In some senses. At some point, a female groundhog turns up. Presumably she was Chunk's partner. Jeff names her Nibbles. But now he has two ground

hugs. Weirdly, both of them would pop up on camera together, facing the same direction, each eating something of his. Jeff, desperate now, has one last idea for how to get out of this endless loop. And when I heard it, it seemed both adorable and completely unlikely to work. The following year, when it's time to plant the garden again, he goes out with his shovel, turns over more earth, and... I gave them, like, their very own garden. Oh my god. Yeah, I literally planted them their own garden.

A reporter for the website The Dodo heard about the story. The resulting video is titled, Guy Builds Veggie Garden for Family of Groundhogs. Which I saw and had questions about. That's why I called Jeff in the first place. I did not see how that was gonna work. Sure, now the groundhogs have their own garden that does not have some big fence around it.

But wouldn't they eat their vegetables and then still break through the fencing into his like before? What's to stop them? Did the plan actually work? The goal is to get them to stay out of your garden. Do they stay out of your garden? Yeah, for the most part, because like you give them like the their own plants around that are that are easier for them to get to.

And then you kind of secure yours up more towards more effort. And it's just like anyone. They're going to go for the easiest, you know, thing, right? The lowest hanging fruit. That's kind of genius, I have to say. It works. You said for the most part. Well, I mean, yeah, there are times when they will still eat my vegetables, right?

But it's not as bad, right? Cause it's, they got other options. But if they somehow happen to get into my garden, which they have, especially the babies, because the babies are real small. Wait, wait, babies? Oh yeah, yeah, we have babies. How many groundhogs do you have now? Seven.

I feel like you started out one place and you ended up in a very different one. Very. I embraced it, you know? Especially with seeing them in the camera, it was like it made it easy to give up. You know, seeing them in the camera every day, it eventually won my heart over. Junk is still there. Jeff last saw him in the fall. It's probably hibernating under the shed. It's been seven years at this point, which is old for a groundhog. Though they can live longer, it helps to have a reliable food source. David Kirstenbaum is our show's senior editor. Coming up, one man combats the chaos of the world on a narrow block in Brooklyn week after week every Tuesday and Thursday. That's in a minute. Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.

It's This American Life, Myra Glass. Today's program, Groundhog Day. Have you ever had a day that just seems to repeat again and again? It's This American Life, Myra Glass. Each week on a program, of course, we choose the theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. It's This American Life from Ira Glass. Each week on our show, of course, we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme. What's This American Life from Ira Glass? Each week on our program, we choose a theme,

bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, Fiasco. Today on our program, 24 Hours at the Golden Apple. Today on our program, a story of race and politics in America, the story of Harold Washington. What's This American Life from Ira Glass? Today's show, a special co-production with NPR News,

a step-by-step look at what exactly happened during the subprime mortgage crisis. Hi, Ira Glass. It's This American Life, the radio program that dares to ask the question. ["Valais ou France?" by The Long Fuse plays.] This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's program... The Long... Fuse. ["Valais ou France?" by The Long Fuse plays.]

I had forgotten about that one, The Long Fuse. Doing this theme this week, I have to admit, made me really think about what it feels like to do our program week after week, 853 times. This is our 853rd episode. And it does feel very different making this show for the 853rd time than it did at the very beginning. Definitely.

There is a sameness to doing things again and again every week that is not entirely pleasant. But, of course, while the process of making a show is always the same, the content of the show changes so much. And there's just something about, I don't know how to put this, like creating the little dream that radio can be. It always just, I don't know, it just gets to me. When the music enters, thank you for that. Everything you say just sounds smarter when you're saying it over music. And just making all the little parts of the show perfect, you know,

or at least as obsessively perfect as you can make it, it's just so easy to get lost in that. Even on the 853rd time. Act Four. Heart of Parkness. People who own cars in certain cities really are just asking for pain. Certain cities are not set up for them and deliver regular, repeated punishment to car owners. Valerie Kipnis' hometown definitely does that on a schedule that's literally posted on signs.

Growing up in New York, you sort of get used to the fact that for a few days every week, your street becomes total chaos. That's because the street cleaning truck is scheduled to come through. The first day, you can't park on the left-hand side, so the sweeper can drive down that way. The second day, you can't park on the right. And it's not like there are empty spaces on other blocks you can move your car to. So, all over New York, what people do on street cleaning day is double park. They move their car so it's all over New York, what people do on street cleaning day is double park. They move their car so it's sitting next to the road parked cars on the other side.

And then they just leave their cars there, double parked, unattended, in the middle of the street for one and a half hours, making room for the street cleaner to sweep next to the curb where their car had just sat. Eight million people, And this is the system we use. A few years ago, I moved to a new neighborhood where the situation is even more intense. The street I live on now is incredibly narrow, just under 25 feet across. I know because I measured.

Which means that if you don't double park perfectly, very close to the row of already parked cars, you end up blocking all traffic. No cars, no street cleaner can get through, and if one neighbor doesn't come out and move their car, that can block all traffic too. But this new street I live on also came with something I'd never seen before. A guy who twice a week has made it his job to try to make this all run smoothly. His persistence as dedication to this thankless job has always sort of puzzled me. So I went out with him on a Thursday this fall. His name is David in his 50s, a former Marine and as it happens, my landlord. It's a few minutes before 1130 when the whole thing begins on our street.

David's wearing his usual uniform of a crisp gray cotton t-shirt and basketball shorts. 1130, just get in your cars, double park them, and everything works like a charm. Brandon, how are you? They're going to be moving their cars now. You hear me? Like I'm becoming like... A blabbermouth. You hear me? Like, I'm becoming like, a gequerron. A blabbermouth.

David always worries he's coming on too strong. Yeah, so he's moving now, the guy in the white car's moving, Bob's moving, you'll all be able to put your cars right down there. His goal this morning is to get everyone on the left side neatly double parking down the middle of our street. To do this, he tries to know everyone on the block. Which cars belong to who?

Who tends to run late? Who runs early? Who's new around here? Who needs a reminder? Like let me read you some of our most recent texts. Hey Valerie, it's time for the car. Hey Valerie, is that your car across the street? Hey Valerie, don't forget about the car.

Today I'm on time. You know what, you should go right between there. Well this guy's gonna leave right now, I think so. Yeah, he's waiting for his wife, but you go right behind James. Where are you gonna pull up? I'm gonna see what I gotta do. David's got a black Grand Cherokee Jeep. It's about midway up the block.

Because I'm gonna either pull up on the sidewalk right here, tell him to move in, or whatever it is. Oh no, the honking's starting. Yeah, you're going to have to. All right, I'm moving my car. He spots James, our neighbor, who just walked out of his house. Just a... how are you, James? Are we supposed to move the car? Yeah, we're double-clopping now.

So we're trying to make a plan. He's going to move her car now Yeah, we went double-clopping now. So we're trying to make a plan. She's gonna move her car now, too, so you might as well... If you want to pull right here for now, and she's gonna move, and then you could follow suit. David nods his head in the direction of my car. Like, come on, enough with the interview. All right, I'm moving, I'm moving. It's a really tight parking job.

You have to get so close to the car on the other side of the street that your side view mirrors touch. Yeah, we're back up. Just back up about another... I'll tell you when to stop. Right. Just watch your side.

Don't get... Yeah, you're good, you're good. Sometimes, when I don't do a good job, David will offer to help, grab my keys and repark the car for me. Today, you're good. Sometimes, when I don't do a good job, David will offer to help, grab my keys and repark the car for me. Today, I do okay. He lets it be. It's a couple minutes past 1130

when all the cars are supposed to have been moved, but only a few have. A few other neighbors, one holding a toddler, the other clearly on a work call, have started coming out of their houses. David waves at them and signals for them to move their cars. We've still got time before the street sweeper comes.

What are you going to do? I gotta sit in the car. Okay, I'm going to sit with you then. We climb in. He double parks. Before David started doing this job, when he was still just a kid growing up on the block, someone else did it. He was kind of a local legend, a guy named Eddie. Like years ago Eddie DeMaior was, we called him DeMaior. You know, we were

kids and we used to sit there and just watch him like, you know, like, like, he's out of his mind. One old-timer on the block told me, hey, don't make a hearer out of Eddie. Apparently, he was a complicated guy. Would sit in a lawn chair in the street so that cars couldn't get through, once laid down in the road to save a parking spot for his daughter-in-law. But still, he kept things in order. Like you know, like the chess man, you go there, you go here, when you going there, you're gonna make it easier for him to pull over there.

He's gonna come out now, he's gonna pull behind you, and everything works. Oh, I know someone who does something just like that, David. Yeah, I know. I became that person. Actually, it wasn't like David just became that person. When Eddie got old, he actually passed the mantle to David. Years ago, he goes, David, you took the helm.

But it's gotten harder. When Eddie was the street parking conductor, most houses had one car, and the neighbors all knew each other well. We're all kind of on board with this parking system. They'd grab the keys and move the car for one another. But recently, this block has really changed. Something like a quarter of the houses have been sold to new folks.

It used to be a blue collar, Italian neighborhood. Now, it's got people with enough money to throw millions of dollars into buying and gut renovating entire brownstones. On street cleaning day, the new people seem happy to leave their cars and get a ticket. And also, because of their renovations, there are constantly trucks parked on the street which take up space in this game of parking Tetris. Michelle, one of our neighbors, walks past us looking frustrated. David points to her and shakes his head.

Michelle, she's looking for a double park spot now. And she lives on the block. It's ridiculous. Michelle can't double park her car because there's a Tesla in front of her that hasn't moved in a couple weeks. And there's a construction dumpster behind her. She pulls into the spot in the middle lane that's across from where she is right now. She'll block the entire street. This kind of stuff happens all the time.

And David knows how he sounds saying this, like some old guy at the park feeding the pigeons and complaining. His words, not mine. But it really didn't used to be this way. Paul, we grew up a certain way. We learned a certain way to how to handle yourself. And to be, you know, courteous, look out for your family, your neighbors, everybody on your block was like family. You know, courteous. Look out for your family, your neighbors, everybody on your block. Was like family. Okay, and now what is it?

What is it now? I'm trying to think of a word. It's... empty. Empty. God forbid there's an ambulance that's coming up. A fire truck, if there's a fire, you're just causing like such... Like, you know, you never know who has someone sick,

who has an infant in their car that has to get home, who has appointments, serious stuff. You never know who's having a bad day. In the last two years, David's had five family members die. Three of them lived here with David in this house on this block. He took care of them, and it was a lot.

Whether it's a nursing home, whether it's hospice, whether it's changing bandages or the oxygen machine hospice, whether it's changing bandages, or the oxygen machine that can change the water, making sure there's water in the cup, bed sores, doctors, back and forth to the hospital, watching somebody die. I just think that there is like, you are taking care of so much. No. Yes, you are, David. You're taking care of, okay, you were taking care of Joan.

You had your dad. Now you got your mom. You're taking care of the house. My aunt Phil, yeah. Your aunt Phil? It's just, listen. Wait, but wait, let me finish. I think there's so much things

that are happening in the house. Like I feel like I live in it so I kind of see it. Like a lot of stuff's out of your control. But this parking thing, you're like, can we just get this right? Can you just- Notice it's just something, it's something that's not hard. It's a neighborhood thing.

It's a block thing. Just do the right thing and everything falls into place. ["Dreams of a New World"] 11.45, we get out of the car to check on how the parking is going down the block. And immediately it's clear there's a problem. There's a truck that can't get through, with a growing line of cars behind it. No way the street cleaner's going to make it through here. It's going, it's three quarters of a block long. It's actually chaos. Like I'm looking right now, the parking. Now everyone's going to start honking.

There's cars backed up around the corner. You have, let's see, you have about 30 cars. The problem? On our block, a construction crew has left a barricade of giant plastic orange traffic barriers in the street to hold space for their dump truck. The barriers are on the street cleaning side, by the sidewalk. And near them, in the middle of the street, someone has parked their car.

No name, no number on the dashboard. There's no room for anyone to squeeze through. You know, this is crazy. It's crazy. Now it's taking up three spots. Now it's taking up three spots. For a split moment, David isn't sure what to do. Then, a couple other old timers, a neighbor Bob and this guy Kenny approach him, and they

huddle off to the side. I look at them and back to the street. Any minute now, and the honking will start. The chaos won't ensue. It's tense. The three of them consider their options. They're usually filled up with water. Yeah, no.

They're late filled up with water. They're light. They weigh a ton. Well, there's some water in it because they're not light. And if they were totally filled with water, it would weigh a ton. Meaning, the barriers are going to be super heavy, like hundreds of pounds. But they've got to try to do something anyway.

So the three of them go over to the barriers, which are too heavy to lift, and try to drag them off the road. I put them in on as one. David, that looks pretty heavy. It's got weight. This war. Hello, baby. Hey. David, that looks pretty heavy. Your hands got weight. This is constructive vandalism. We're helping each other.

Like local heroes, eh? It takes a while, but they manage to drag the barriers next to the lawn of the house undergoing construction. Now we have enough space. We have enough street there for one car. The truck is able to get through. The line of cars finally starts to move.

And then, after them, comes a street sweeper. Sweet, sweet victory. Sweet, sweet victory. It swerves around the unmoved Tesla and the three other cars that no one cared to move, but makes it through nonetheless. There's no celebration, no moment of victory. David heads out to pick up his mom's meds. Then he comes back to feed the birds, because he actually does that.

In a bit, David gets in his car and moves it back to the left side of the road, checks to make sure I reparked mine correctly, that the others have too. The barriers will reappear overnight, except this time they'll take up more space. David, Bob, and Kenny will push them to the sidewalk again, and then again. The Tesla won't move. The neighbors will be late. Every week the

cycle will repeat itself. This little universe will break apart. And David will put it back together again. Valerie Kudness is the producer on our show. Act five. It's been a hard year's night and I've been working like a hog. So Bung-Sit-Hon-Nee-Phil is not the only groundhog who gets drafted into annual Groundhog Day ceremonies around the country. There's actually a website, groundhogday.com,

that lists over three dozen of these poor critters around the United States and Canada. There's French Creek Freddy in West Virginia, Woody the Woodchuck in Michigan. There's a groundhog in New York City at the Staten Island Zoo. In New York in the past, the city's mayor used to be part of the groundhog ceremony

until 2015, after Bill de Blasio dropped a groundhog. He died later that same week. The current mayor, Eric Adams, is a well-known rodent hater who launched a war on the city's rats, and he has never shown up in person to the ceremony. And as a man who runs the city, he could use his powers to try to shut down the Groundhog Day ceremony on Staten Island once and for all. And there's somebody out there who would like that very much.

We are pleased to bring her to you now. This is a This American Life exclusive. She's a resident of New York, specifically Staten Island, more specifically, the zoo. 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. 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? 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 locks, but I'm supposed to hibernate from October to April. From October to April. 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. 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. 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 at my face and then blind me with flashbulbs, but I don't feel seen at all.

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 ground hog. A ground hog? 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. 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. Play the trombones, unfurl your little scroll and have your weird rodent fortune-telling pageant. Because you need it.

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 gray monotony of your repetitive lives. 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're 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-Caplowitz. Susan Hogg-Caplowitz's letter to Mayor Adams was written and read by Bess Kalb. She writes books and other funny stuff. Her newsletter, which you can find on Substack, is The Grudge Report. Well, the money goes out, the bills come in Round and round we go again I come close but I never win I'm stuck on the treadmill Another day of punching steel Till my heart's too numb to feel

Like a hamster on a wheel I'm stuck on the treadmill Our program was produced today by Aviva de Kornfeld the people put together today's program include Bimata Woumi, Jindai Bonds, Dana Chivas, Michael Kamade, Angela Gervasi, Khan and Joffrey Walt, Tobin Lowe, Miki Neek, Catherine Ray Mondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Ryan Rumory, Lily Sullivan, Frances Swanson, Christopher Svitala, Julie Whitaker and Diane Wu. Our managing editor Sara Abdurrahman, our Senior Editor is David Kestenbaum, our Executive Editor is Emanuel Barry. Special thanks today to Kerry Rose Thiessen, Ethan Brooks, Eddie Wong, Lindy Wade Dlamini, Saudit Zulkada, Avery Truffleman, and Ned Ryerson. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations

by PRX, the public radio exchange, to become a This American Life partner. It gets you bonus episodes, it gets you ad-free listening, it gets you hundreds of greatest hits episodes that show up right in your podcast feed. Go to thisamericanlife.org slash life partners. Also very important, signing up this way also helps keep our program going. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Troy Malatia. You know, he is not a very good dance teacher. You go there, you go here.

When you go in there, you're going to make it easier for him to pull over there. He's going to come out now, he's going to pull behind you, and everything works. I'm Ira Glass. Back next week, with more stories of this American life. You