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Nothing Is Awesome Except For This Game We Made Up About Groundhog Day
OK campers, rise and shine and don't forget to stay home today, because there's a highly contagious virus out there.
Indeed, we are all trapped inside a palm tree-filled snow globe for the foreseeable future, and if there's another marmot movie that's as good as Groundhog Day at depicting this specific type of existential despair, I haven't seen it.
(Illustration by Chava Sanchez)
So, let's play a game.
Tell us what Groundhog Day day you're living in right now.
Are you stuck in a day where Phil performs a new skill, or has your brush with infinite time been more like the day he grins warmly and punches Ned in the face?
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Maybe you're having a Phil-eats-everything-at-the-diner day. Or maybe you're metaphorically letting the groundhog drive the truck. Perhaps your loop falls on this super, major, extra, very bleak day.
By some estimates, you have 12,403 days, 38 days, 10 years, 30-40 years, or 8 years, 8 months, and 16 days to choose from as you figure out where you are on the Phil Conners arc.
OK, we'll start.
I'm the day Phil stares down cosmic meaninglessness and delivers with abdication and transcendent sarcasm the following hot take on a cold day:
"This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather."
Ryan did not name his day. But he did write instructive parody lyrics to the Pennsylvania Polka. Outlets for stress take many forms.
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🎶Stay home, don't panic,
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She's the one who cooked up this idea, which is likely a symptom/coping mechanism/cry for help for not sleeping in more than two weeks, because pandemic. Her Groundhog Day day looks like this:
"I'm on the first piano lesson day. I'll pay $1,000 dollars to kick out the poor kid so I can get going on mastering this new universe. It might not be perfect, but I know I have many more lessons ahead."
Play along and tell us what day you're having. We anxiously await your insights.
And if you want extra credit, see if you can help connect the lyric-to-scene dots on a longstanding feeling that the bed and breakfast in Punxsutawney has something to do with Hotel California.
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I got you, babe.
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You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
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