A House is not a Home Without a Private Gnome
There’s a gnome living in my home. Oh, we’ve never met, but I know he exists, because traces of his devilish doings are everywhere.
For example, Gnome is a compulsive collector, but only at particular times. Large boxes of band-aids and gauze can gather dust for months, poised and ready in my linen closet. But at the precise moment that a six-year-old bashes his thumb, I fling open the door to find the containers mysteriously empty and only my best pink lace guest towels available to stem the bleeding.
Likewise, our kitchen drawer stocks hundreds of workable pens and pencils when any of us are chatting leisurely on the phone. But let a long-distance business message for Husband come in, and the drawer yields only a broken green crayon and a sheet of plastic wrap. Somewhere, I suspect, in a yet-discovered recess of our home, Gnome is gleefully examining his booty, a stolen stockpile of bandages, sharpened pencils, thumbtacks, screwdrivers, tape, one-of-a-pair socks and gift ribbon—testimony to his mania for practical joking.
Gnome’s teasing does not stop with this vanishing act, however, for his peculiar sense of timing influences out areas of our household as well. Why else would our appliances slosh, whirr and gurgle along comfortably—as long as their warranties are all in force? Whenever an insurance policy lapse, however, we’ve not long to wait until the TV goes blank or the drier begins its ominous bumps and grinds.
Oh, the way our Gnome can handle machines! The dishwasher, which has been disgorging dirty water over the kitchen floor for days, purrs and hums docilely at the mere sound of the repairman’s knock. As he backs out of the driveway, however, perplexed at his inability to find the problem, Gnome merrily pulls the dishwasher’s hidden controls, and the gushing reappears.
All manner of strange things occur whenever we feel Gnome’s presence. Shoes separate, leaving only one to be found when the Ten-year-old is late for basketball practice. Clocks speed up during a frantic afternoon but drag along whenever the baby is teething and miserable. The mailman arrives at the crack of dawn when he has overdue bills to deliver; we are still searching for him at bedtime, however, on paycheck day. It rains for 97 continuous hours when the children are on spring vacation, but the morning they return to school finds the entire earth bathed in sunshine. Through it all, Gnome lurks silently, delighted with the chaos he creates.
At times I stamp my foot, demanding that he show himself, face me so that we can have it out once and for all. But alas—he prefers to stay anonymous, waving his wands, pushing his buttons and working the strings of our household—all of us, his own personal puppets.
(C) Joan Wester Anderson 1974
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