2013 POPS, The Right Honourable Bastiaan Groundhog, remained in seclusion this weekend as snow blanketed The Park and temperatures failed to rise to seasonal levels.
The 2013 Park Official Prognosticator of Spring (POPS) remained in seclusion at an undisclosed location this weekend as snow blanketed The Park and temperatures failed to rise to even near-seasonal values.
As Bastiaan Groundhog, The Park’s tenth zoocratically-elected POPS looked to his own safety after receiving threats against his life, Park citizens began to demand answers regarding the Groundhog’s prognostication abilities. Some have even accused the POPS of deliberately misrepresenting himself on his résumé and in the pre-election debates held this past Autumn.
“I had reservations about him from the beginning, but no one would listen,” said W.H. “Skipper” Skunk, who also ran as a candidate for the position. “They said I was raising a stink for no good reason.”
Malka Eekhoorn, a 2013 candidate as well, says she experienced the same reaction when she expressed her opinion.
“Everyone turned away when I said I thought he was too young, too inexperienced. But he was. He was zealous for sure, but it takes more than passion to be a good prognosticator. You have to have what my grandfather used to call a ‘weathered nose for weather’ and you don’t get that until you’ve seen a few seasons,” she said.
Still, the POPS has his supporters, many of whom blame the cutbacks by The Park Weather Office for this year’s troubles.
“With a decent, straightforward purchase [of weather], Bastiaan would have been correct,” said his longtime friend Dylan “Diesel” Weasel. “But with all this cost-cutting, how’s a Groundhog to know, from one day to the next, what will be thrown at him? He saw what he saw on February 2, but how was he to know that they bought better weather for February than they did for April? You can only predict based on what you see on the day,” he said.
The Park Weather Office has not commented on the Groundhog’s prediction, but it issued a statement this morning saying that warmer weather would arrive in The Park by the end of the month.
See also:
Threats force POPS to flee to “undisclosed location”
Mixed reaction as Bastiaan Groundhog wins POPS election
Focus on: Groundhog Day
