02/09/2004: "Why do the gnomies love teasing me?"

Gnomie Update

It seems that we have found the Queen of the Gnomies. I'll give you a hint, she has red hair.... Script found, no harm done. Now, if only the coin and cars would come back too....



We had another gnome-related incident last night. I am participating in a staged reading put on by CityLights Theatre Company, and had the first read-through on Saturday morning. I am sure that I brought my script home, and took it out of the car afterwards, but then it disappeared without trace.

This is not an uncommon event in my life. The Gnomies just love to play tricks on me, hiding things, moving them around, putting back in the same place where I had already searched five times. I know that this happens to many people, and that most gnomies have some favourite things, like socks, pens, and so on. Well, obviously we are infested by gnomes with odd tastes - we have dozens more pens and socks than we could ever use, but other things seem to mysteriously disappear.

Usually, the gnomies only move things around, or hide them temporarily. But, I guess every now and then they find something that they really like, or perhaps that they can trade with other gnomies. Some of the strange disappearances in my life are:

- My entire collection of Matchbox cars disappeared one day when I was about 10 years old. I had probably thirty or more toy cars and trucks, and one day, they just plain disappeared. I searched everywhere, but there was no sign of them. A couple of cars escaped the disappearance, but none of the others was ever seen again. I remember at the time having all sorts of conspiracy theories, because I well knew that I never took the cars out of the house, and no body had been around to play with me. Of course, I didn't learn about gnomies until a long time later.

- Stranger still was the disappearance of a coin that I had found. Admittedly, I first found the coin under very strange circumstances. - I had been charged with tidying up in the classroom at Floreat primary school, and while sweeping things up, had come across an old coin, just lying on the floor. It was an 1820 silver British coin, with a picture of the King on the back (the one that always reminds me of my dad!). Now that I think back, I must have found it right about the time that my toy cars disappeared. I knew that this was a precious coin, and so I kept good care of it - to the point of hiding it in my "secret" hiding place. I had an old desk that I had inherited from my sister, with a draw that would pull out all the way. I put the coin in a plastic bag, and hid it behind the drawer. I must have been around 14 at this stage, and one day I noticed that the draw looked like it had moved. I checked, and the coin had vanished, also never to be seen again. There was no way it could have fallen anywhere, it must have been taken, but nobody knew about my hiding place, and it was just me and my parents living at home. Again, I'm sure it was the gnomies at work...

There are many more examples. As I said, usually things show up, but these few things, never seen again, remain a mystery. My own personal Bermuda triangle... One day I'll figure out what the gnomies want, find some way to make them happy. For now, we have tried setting out a "Gnomie Altar", covered with the things they seem to prize the most - and we try not to look too closely, because the gnomies are smart, and won't take things that are carefully watched.