Gnome Spores

Some people have warts, spoon collections, or small dogs. I have gnomes. Gnomes which, I should add, are uniquely fond of all of the above (weirdos.)*

I keep my gnomes (or rather, attempt to keep my gnomes) outside in a prepared garden that I dug especially for them. It's nestled beneath a Norway Maple that someone should've ripped out, but didn't about 25 years ago. I've kept it suitably woodsy and wild for them out there and as I've had no complaints from the wee bastards I assume that they're pleased with it. Nothing like urinating beneath a nice stand of lily-of-the-valley to get a gnome's blood flowing in his gnome-veins. Makes them feel alive.

Sometimes they like to do a bit of decorating of their own (and not just with their own bodily fluids!) Sometimes they coax mushrooms to grow. The other morning I looked out the window to see this going down: a classic, gnome-instigated mushroom party. I had to go out and investigate.

Gnomes have a lot in common with mushrooms, and not just because some (most?) of them are sort of damp, smelly, and fairly toxic if ingested. We know that mushrooms (and other fungus) spread via spores, and I strongly suspect that gnomes reproduce in the very same way, and just as quickly, too. One minute there's nothing and then poof, there's a whole mess of the little darlings all over the garden, running the show. I mean, how can one otherwise explain either mushrooms or gnomes?**

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go investigate a suspicious clang that I just heard downstairs. I thought that I had kicked them all outside this morning.***

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*N.B.: My gnomes may not be representative of all gnomes. Maybe you're lucky. Maybe yours are the polite kind. Maybe your gnomes aren't gross little nutjobs who like to do the two-step in jam and then go smear their sticky feet on the good carpet. Mine find this to be a inexhaustible source of amusement (weirdos.)

**Not a rhetorical question. You can't. Don't try.

***I had. They came back.