Smell the Coffee: Hog Noir
CHARLESTON, W.Va. --
It was a dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. Punxsutawney. Pennsylvania.
Shamtown. Conville. The Nation's Deceivers.
There was something fishy going on in Punxsutawney, and I was determined to find out what it was. My name is Noir. Gal Noir.
I was minding my own business, strolling about Punxsutawney after the festivities were over, after the last of the camera-toting tourists had snapped their final shots, when I first laid eyes upon him.
He was short and rugged. His brown hair shone like what Beethoven had in mind when he wrote the Moonlight sonata. He wore nothing but his fur coat -- a fur so tight it was like he'd been poured into it and forgot to say When. He moved in a way that could take a woman's mind off the state of the economy. At least for a minute.
Though I'm not the kind of hard-hitting newshound who works doggedly (or hoggedly, as the case may be) to out a beloved celebrity involved in a scandal, I knew who and what he was in an instant, and could not allow his charade to continue.
"Phil," I said, my voice husky from one too many cream sodas (three fingers, neat), "you're not a groundhog at all, are you?"
Phil retreated a few steps, an expression of surprise and alarm on his furry face. Then, much like I would've expected of one grown comfortable with his facade, his beguiling guise, Phil smiled confidently. Disarmingly. His teeth white and long. So very, very long.
More like the teeth of a woodchuck.
I pelted him with questions, rapidly firing one after another, hoping to catch him off guard.
Question. Question. Question. And then, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"
His answer? "Seven."
"Gotcha!" I said. "You're an imposter! No one but a woodchuck could've answered that question. I've done extensive research on Google. Looked at countless images of groundhogs and woodchucks. And you, sir, are a woodchuck."
Phil yawned.
"So tell me," I continued. "What does PHIL really mean? Is it an acronym for Perspicacious Histrionic Impish Liar? Or Punxsutawney's Hilarious Imitation Lothario?"
Phil appeared unruffled by my accusation.
"Groundhog. Woodchuck. Land beaver. Whistlepig," said Phil. "They're all pretty much interchangeable."
Scandal scuttled, I left some apologies with the large, drowsy rodent and bid a hasty farewell. Headed back out into the dark night in the city that keeps well its secrets.
Chuckville. Hogtown.
Punxsutawney, Pa.
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