I need to be upfront about something: Michael, a grown adult with a functional driver’s license and the right to vote, has no idea what a shadow is. Or a groundhog. And yes, we’ve tried explaining. Many times. It never sticks.
It all started one summer afternoon when we were walking down the street, and Michael suddenly jumped like he’d been electrocuted.
“Bro, what was that?” he gasped, looking around wildly.
“What was what?”
“That—thing! That just moved when I moved!”
We all followed his gaze to the pavement. His own shadow.
Now, at first, I thought he was joking. No one actually doesn’t know what a shadow is, right? But Michael’s eyes were wide with fear and confusion. He stepped forward. The shadow followed. He stepped back. The shadow followed. This went on for a full minute before he turned to us, deadly serious.
“This thing is copying me.”
We spent way too long trying to explain that shadows aren’t alive. Light, physics, all that. Michael nodded, pretending to understand, then muttered, “Nah, man. That’s some weird ghost twin stuff.” And that was that.
But if the shadow incident was bad, Groundhog Day was worse.
It was early February, and someone brought up Punxsutawney Phil. Michael, as usual, inserted himself into the conversation.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he interrupted, holding up a hand. “Who is this Phil guy? What does he do?”
“You don’t know about Groundhog Day?” I asked.
Michael shrugged. “Never met the dude.”
I sighed. “He’s not a guy, he’s a groundhog.”
Michael blinked. “Okay… and what’s a groundhog?”
This was not happening.
We spent the next ten minutes pulling up pictures, explaining that a groundhog is not a type of dog, not a baby bear, and definitely not a “weird rat.” We even broke down the Groundhog Day tradition—how the little creature supposedly predicts winter’s length by seeing its shadow.
Michael listened, nodding slowly. “Alright, I think I get it,” he finally said.
I should have known better.
Because the next morning, he burst into our group chat: “GUYS. I JUST SAW A GROUNDHOG.”
Now, this would have been cool, except Michael lives in the city. Nowhere near any groundhogs. We demanded proof. He sent a blurry picture. It was, unmistakably, a squirrel.
“Michael,” I replied, “That’s a squirrel.”
“Same thing,” he shot back.
We tried, once again, to explain the difference, but Michael had already moved on, proudly announcing, “I think it saw its shadow. We might get more winter.”
At this point, we’ve accepted that Michael’s world operates on its own rules. Shadows are suspicious, groundhogs are mythological, and the difference between a rodent and a rodent-adjacent creature is purely a matter of perspective.
Full disclosure? We’ve stopped trying to fix him.
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