by: Rick Schmitt © July 2002 Issue of American Odd
Garden gnomes, those rosy-cheeked, pointy-hatted fellows peering out from the edges of so many well-tended gardens and lawns, have been called everything from cute to creepy. They’ve also inspired a lot of folklore.
Some garden gnome folklore holds that a married couple will argue for the rest of their natural lives if a gnome is placed on either side of their property line. Others say a child’s nose will grow as long as his or her parent is unfaithful. The only way to break the spell, according to this particular legend, is to pull the nose off, nail it back on upside down and bury the child up to his or her neck.
These days, gardeners are likely to hear another bit of lore before they start any digging: “Don’t kill your gnomes.”
Gnome-lovers everywhere are shouting this warning as garden art goes high-tech. Gnomes are getting cuter, smarter and more mobile all the time. But they’re also getting meaner.
The key to their bad temper is technology. Wireless sensors are now fueling some gnomes with “smart chips” that can sense an intruder within 15 feet of any garden gnome carrying a special wireless “buggy ID.” At this point, the chip activates a GPS tracking device.
If an interloper doesn’t turn around and leave within 30 seconds of being spotted, the chip starts talking to its friends. To do so, it switches on one of a few pre-recorded soundbites that are intended to be insults:
“You’re stupid.”
“You’re ugly.”
“You’re dead meat.”
These are just some of the invectives that have been heard in various neighborhoods across America after being initiated by one or more smart gnomes, according to reports sent to American Odd. The chip also has a long list of self-defense tactics for when it is threatened. These include gunshots, thunder and electronic music.
“The push to develop smart gnomes was inevitable,” explained dealer Opie Schenker of the Gnome Mart, a garden-gnome shop in New Jersey. “We just wanted to get ahead of the curve.”
According to reports from other dealers, smart gnomes are growing more common all the time. Most smart gnomes are made by sophisticated European companies like Dreamstone and Gernsback whose wireless systems are said to be the most advanced available. Since they first began making smart gnomes, Dreamstone has sold more than 10 million. Most of these sales have come since 2001 when several incidents involving crazy-acting garden gnomes sent security experts scurrying to the drawing board.
For instance, in early summer of that year, a series of burglaries was reported in Landisville, N.J., and neighboring towns. A total of $12 million worth of silver and gold trinkets were taken from 12 homes with no signs of forced entry.
Police suspected electronic bugs had been planted, but they had trouble tracking down the culprits until a nearby homeowner reported his gold watch was missing. The next day, he also said his garden gnome was no longer in the front yard where it belonged.
The police immediately assumed that one of their suspects had stolen and sold the watch and then taken the gnome as a sort of “trophy.”
“It was just kind of funny,” said Detective Jerry Kozlowski, who led the investigation. It turned out that the gnome had been moved outside another house down the block where it often caught the eye of anyone in a second-floor bathroom there. The thief in this case had even used an extension cord to power up the gnome, which is when it started talking.
“It says ‘Let’s get the hell out of here,'” said Kozlowski. “The whole thing was pretty weird.”
Kozlowski was able to secure a confession by telling the owner that he had heard this selfsame phrase on his own answering machine just before he went out to confront his gnome.
At the time, Kozlowski said: “It’s not an urban myth. It did happen and we were able to get a confession.”
by: Rick Schmitt © July 2002 Issue of American Odd [Retrieved 05/09/2021]
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