I have a garden gnome. In fact, I am rather fond of him and all his little garden gnome friends. They are cute and help keep my lawn mowed. Just kidding, but they do help my yard look nicer than it would without them.
So far so good, right? Well, here is the problem: my garden gnome has become a magnet for other misplaced garden gnomes.
When I first got him, he did not come with any friends. He was all alone and sitting on my front porch by himself. At this point, I should mention that during the time when I decided to buy these gnomes, I had seen some people walking around my neighborhood carrying them. I also had seen people wearing T-shirts with pictures of garden gnomes on them, so this was not an uncommon thing to run across.
When I asked one of these passersby why they were walking around with their garden gnome, they told me that it wasn’t theirs. This made no sense at all! Why would they be carrying around something that wasn’t theirs?
I decided it must be a cultural thing and let the matter drop. For those of you who are not aware, I am from a culture where people do not walk around carrying garden gnomes that don’t belong to them. In fact, my current dwelling place is known as the United States. Here, it is not common to walk around with garden gnomes that don’t belong to you.
I was a bit puzzled by this initially, but I got over it and decided that having a garden gnome would be a great idea. I went online and ordered one from an e-commerce site for garden gnomes (BuyGardenGnomes.com). When he arrived, I was very pleased with the quality of my purchase.
He fit in perfectly with all the other garden gnomes that already adorned my front porch. It wasn’t long before he became the leader of this little group of lawn ornaments. He sat there smiling at me every day and seemed quite proud about his new position. He stood there watching as I left for work in the mornings, and he waved to me when I came home late at night.
When I got home after dark, his little pudgy face would be lit up with a friendly grin that seemed to say “welcome home!” Unfortunately, even though my gnome was happy with his new life, this did not last long.
One day I came home to find that the lights in my garden gnome’s face were no longer on. This was very odd, because there were still batteries inside of him. If it wasn’t the lights that had gone out, what was it? It did not take me very long to figure this one out since I saw the other garden gnome that had appeared on my front porch.
I still think of him as a stranger, because I have no idea who he is or where he came from. My guess is that he belongs to someone else and has been lost. This is why I try not to stand between them when they are reunited with their family.
The reason I bring this up is because the appearance of this other gnome has caused my garden gnome to become infatuated with him. Every time I come home, they are standing together and whispering about things that only concern them. They do not seem concerned with waving at me when I arrive or waiting for me in the evenings when I leave.
So now I have two garden gnomes (that don’t belong to me) and I need to find a way to make them go away. This is because my garden gnome will now only spend time with the other stranger and it has become annoying. If the situation continues, the next thing you know they will be exchanging recipes and discussing the best way to take care of their lawn.
I don’t know what will happen next, but I am afraid that they might be plotting against me and this scares me a lot.
So there you have it: my frustrating problem with garden gnomes and how it has affected my life. I don’t regret my purchase, as the gnome is of high quality and solid build. But I hope that my accounting of the unexpected ‘side-effects’ of gnome ownership can be useful to somebody.
By: John Doe (Garden Gnome Advocate), originally published in the Midwestern Daily Bugle
We understand that garden gnomes may have a bad reputation, but we’re dedicated to changing this. We hope this article has been informative and will help you in your next gardening purchase. To thank our readers for their patience, we’re giving away a free.
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