Punxsutawney Phil is a big jerk

AS IT TURNS OUT, it is a bad thing when Punxsutawney Phil -- that blackguard, that villain, that FURRY FIEND -- sees his shadow on Groundhog Day.

I have been misinterpreting his shadow-seeing all these years and now feel that I want to send him a strongly worded letter that urges him to make his intentions a little more clear. Like, say, "if I see my shadow on the morning of February 2, everybody in the United States named Shelley gets a check for a million dollars."

That would cut down on confusion, now wouldn't it?

Sorry about the rest of you, but we need to respect Phil's boundaries.

See, the reason I've been confused, as I pointed out to Sharon, is that here in Indiana, to know that we have only six more weeks of winter is a wonderful thing, a little gift to us from Mother Nature. In Indiana, it is entirely possible to wake up on Easter morning and have to shovel six inches of new snow off the sidewalks, but spring? It NEVER comes in mid-March. Ever. There might be a couple of those teaser days, the ones where it gets up into the sixties and a bunch on dimwits go outside wearing shorts and flip-flops and I don't care what people say, my feet like to feel a little bit of warm sun on them, so just hush. But March is best known for throwing massive amounts of snow and ice at us, usually just in time for the regional basketball games.

So for Phil to hint that spring will be coming as early as the middle of March? That's just a cruel joke and one I would have thought unworthy of a being as benevolent as Phil, but it is now late afternoon and my innocence has been UTTERLY DESTROYED.