I’m a Groundhog, and I Don’t Want to Be Your Goddamn Spirit Animal
Yeah, we can chuck wood … at your head

A little animal biology. We groundhogs are solitary creatures. We are self-reliant and make intricate homes burrowing six feet into the ground that usually include a man cave.
We don’t have friends. Once a year, we venture out and hook up for a wild month-long fling. But it’s NSA. GWB. We don’t get the feels.
In my considerable quiet alone time, I get in touch with my feelings. I’m pretty attuned to my environment. It plays out as intuition.
Is intuition in now? Lately, I have a line of hipsters and hippies lining up outside my burrow who want to recruit me as their spirit animal.
Pray tell, greasy-bearded human, why do thou desire a groundhog as your spirit animal?
“Uh, I like how they hang out alone and think and rely on themselves. Only once a year do they have fucks to give.”
Wow, how intuitive. You see me. You complete me. Fine. Tell everyone I’m your spirit animal. But for the love of god, leave me alone.
I don’t want to hear you and your single-gear bike meetup crew serenading me, “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
It’s meta. I get it.
We can, uh, chuck wood. We can chuck it at your goddamn head.
If you respect us and our solitary nature, here’s some team-building advice. Don’t parade us out to the entire city in our pajamas and grill us on whether winter will continue.
I’ll pick. But have you ever heard of the Monty Hall problem? You’re supposed to ask if I want to change my answer. I always want to change my answer.
Picking me as your spirit animal doesn’t give your natural intuition a boost if you can’t figure out: I don’t want to be friends. I don’t have friends. I have some cis-gender groundhogs-with-benefits dealios, but that’s it.
You want to be a groundhog? Then, start acting like one. Hibernate. Stay in your territory. I don’t want to grab a beer and listen to your superficial problems. If you’re having trouble, here’s my advice.
Dig deeper.