Nina In New York: A Groundhog Day-Meets-Jersey-Shore Fable...Or Something

A young professional's take on the trials and tribulations of everyday life in New York City.
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By Nina Pajak

Oh, Groundhog Day. A silly tradition, to be sure, but a charming one in any event.

This year, Snooki the Hoboken groundhog popped out of her hole looking just adorable—she had just recently been tanning and wowed her adoring fans with that irresistible, just-baked glow about her. She wore a leopard-print monokini with Juicy Couture terrycloth booty shorts, and a pink cropped hoodie with the word "Slut" printed across the back in graceful, swooping rhinestone script. On her itty bitty paws, massively filthy fuzzy slippers. And on her tiny little head, someone had glued a precious bouffant, from the bottom of which swept a mane of luscious dark extensions which perched gracefully on her shoulder, like a pet rat.

Related: The 'Jersey Shore' Fashion & Style Guide

She came up into the daylight, amid the popping flashbulbs of thousands of onlookers and paparazzi, and she blinked her big, doe eyes to adjust to the sun. As she did, a false eyelash slid down her cheek. Tee hee, she giggled and snorted, and then she belched once, loudly. It smelled of freshly dug soil and the earth and woods and all good things that all good groundhogs are made of. Plus, old meatballs soaked in pickle juice and cheap vodka.

"Oof!" said the crowd, and she gave a demure look and cast her eyes downward, appearing to become transfixed with something on the ground.

The people looked at her expectantly, but she did not move.

"Well?" they said. "What do you see? Do you see your shadow?"

"Huh? she said, suddenly looking up. "Whaddjasay?"

"Your shadow! If you don't see your shadow, what were you just looking at?"

"My what? Pssht, shadows are like, stupid. I don't remember. This is boring."

The crowd looked disappointed.

"Heyyyy," she started up again, "Did you know I'm on T.V.? T.V. is my favorite. Can my friend JWoww the Blue-Footed Booby and me do a show here? I promise it'd be, like, so freakin' funny, because we're freakin' hilarious together. We're like, my favorite. Did you see that time we did that thing where we got really drunk and I pooped in a houseplant and then fell down and my underwears came off? That was my favorite."

"Nooooo!" cried the townspeople.

"But, you'll like, make money. You stupid b*tches," she hiccuped.

"We don't care. Go back in your hole now, please. I think your tan is starting to fade. You'd better go."

"Whatever, b*tches, love you," she said. And with that, she did a little twirl, fell down, got back up, did another little twirl, and jumped feet-first back into her hole.

And that is the story of how Hoboken got six more weeks of winter, and nobody minded.