The Pennsylvania native, Punxsutawney Phil, has outraged the entire country after discovering he can still see his shadow. Phil, the highly praised groundhog, even has an organization in his name where people gather once a year to find out if they get to be in cutoffs and shorts in six weeks or not. This rodent can significantly influence groups of people, but why? How come we have put aside our sense to follow a silly tradition that we all disapprove of if the outcome isn’t what we want?

Lately, the decisions Phil has made are consistently the latter. His recent letdown is making Americans fume, and frankly, I’m sick of him, too. How can we give our trust to an animal that sleeps for months on end? It’s as if we all forgot that we own calendars and weather apps we could utilize, but we want to listen to a rodent that repeatedly gives unclear answers. 

The real issue isn’t a brainless groundhog, it’s us; we have professional meteorologists who could give us an answer but we still choose to believe Phil. We need to end this tradition.  It’s time to put a foot down and our pride aside. After all, nature will run its course eventually and Phil will end up prey sooner or later. We’ve had our fun but I don’t appreciate taking orders from a rodent anymore and I’m sure many would agree.