By jim holt
Find the garden gnome hiding somewhere in this picture. Go ahead. It’s fun.
Somewhere in this photo there should be a smiling gnome resting on his rake ….
Should be.
Are you looking?
Somewhere …. Somewhere …. If you look long and hard, there’s a garden gnome hiding in this photo of red flowers ….
Naw, I’m only messin’ with you.
There’s no gnome. That’s the whole point of these blogs I’ve been posting for the last couple of years.
It’s been a long long time since my mother’s yard has been home to a jolly portly wee guy in lederhosen, laughing at life among the wee firs …
Who’s laughing now? Right? Right?
Still looking, aren’t you?
Give it up, buddy. Face it. They’re just gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.
Where do they go? Right? Where DO they go? Am I right? These garden gnomes we love.
You like the wee party truck idea, don’t you? I know. I know.
Some days I wish I could just dwindle down to just a foot-and-a-half tall, get me a groovy leather vest, some John Lennon glasses, floppy rave-type hat, floppy knee-high matching boots, maybe a beer stein … just so I could stand in my mom’s front garden for a couple of nights until the party truck comes by …
Ooohhh …. Don’t know about the gnome party truck?
(In case you missed the first couple of blogs … the on-going theory here at Bloghouser is that all the garden gnomes in all the neighborhood yards go missing at night when the gnome party truck – the size of those motorized kids’ Jeeps – drives by, scouring the neighborhood waving waiting gnomes to join them).
Anyway, some days I’d like to be able to call the gnome home my home.
Forget the mile-high club … I say, give me an invite to the knee-high club. I think garden gnomes have got a pretty good thing going on … vehemently protecting the secret of their disappearance.
I spotted a garden gnome recently – in of all places, a garden. Can you believe it? A garden gnome still found in a bloody garden. Un-frickin’believable, I know.
It was the middle of the day …. Front yard …. There he stood, flanked by pink impatiens on his left and pink impatiens on his right … looking both pretty – and funky – in pink … boots like elf slippers, floppy hat of course (was there ever a time when those bloody hats actually stood erect? A weighty question perhaps for another day) … so there he was, smiling, looking up at me as I dared to walk up the driveway and stand over the little guy … there he was smiling, rosy cheeks …..
I looked around …. Squatted down in front of him (to give anyone watching the impression I was admiring some handiwork) ….
That smirk … oh that smirk …
“You’re hiding something, aren’t you buddy? Some big big secret, eh? A big big secret for a little guy, eh? Eh? Oh yeah, you know something.”
Of course he said nothing.
They’re trained like that. Trained to make it look like they’re working in your garden when in actual fact all they ever do is hold rakes and shovels and beer steins in just the right way so that you think they’re working …. They’re not.
“C’mon, buddy….. I’m onto you. You and your diminutive pals all vanishing without a trace and real human – ok, I’ll say it, tall – people are expected not to notice or ask questions …. Well, I’m asking …. What’s it all about? …. Eh? …. Big guy?”
Silence.
Oh, they’re so crafty …. To say nothing of smug … that smirk.
“C’mon … c’mon …. It’s just you and me. I won’t tell anyone … you guys disappear, meet at a secret location, hook up with garden chick gnomes, doff your lederhosen and kerchiefs, leave them in a tiny heap by some watering hole … yeah? Yeah? Is that it? Is that it?
Again, nothing.
Oh they’re good at keeping their mouths shut … Freemasons have nothing on these guys. Every now and then some wayward mason gets drunk and spills the beans on his memorizing pals only to end up disappearing … well, garden gnomes have never said a word and they ALL go missing.
Genius. Sheer, genius.
“Ok, buddy,” that’s what I said to this garden gnome I actually spotted in someone’s yard. “Ok, buddy. I’m hip to you.”
(I gave him one of those eye-to-eye hand gestures … where I make a peace sign with my fingers, then point them at my eyes and then point them at his eyes, then my eyes, then his eyes …)
“Are we good? Are we? Look at my eyes, fella’.”
At this point, he’s smiling up at me, hands on his hips.
“This isn’t over.” I tell him. “I’ll be back.”
I went back the next day with a shopping list of questions. I parked my car, got out, walked confidently over to the pink impatiens …..
You guessed it, my friend. You guessed it. You’ve obviously been there yourself. Yep. Gone.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
I stood there looking at the empty space between the pink impatiens …. Shaking my head, hands on hips, I looked up at the sky in wonder, shaking my head and I couldn’t help smiling….
I was suddenly aware of a larger being looking down and seeing in His garden, by the pink impatiens, a tiny figure of a person, kind of portly, standing with his hands on his hips, looking up at the sky, pretending to work ….
