Gnome Sweet Gnome

I came home mad at the world and everything in it. I was missing the Super Bowl! I wanted to be home from work hours ago, but, as usual, someone called in. I’m a nice person, so I said I’d stay. Why am I always the nice one? I curse myself as I push hard on my front door. I push again. Nothing. I can’t get it to budge.

“Lucy!” I yell through the closed door. “You are in big trouble, dog!” She was small as Black Labs go, only 76 pounds. Two weeks ago she pulled a prank I was sure was again blocking my entrance to the house. She chewed a hole in the side of the couch and dragged it in front of the door. Last time I went in through a window. Today I was not in the mood for her antics. When she was young and cute, I named her Lucille, after B.B. King’s Guitar. Now she reminded me more of a Stephen King character than a B. B. King love.

I stepped back and put my shoulder into the door, immediately falling face first onto the beige carpet of the living room. I smelled burnt pizza. Laugher erupted around me. I didn’t recognize the voices. Pulling my face up from the carpet, I saw my garden gnomes. These once cute garden statues had taken over my house! I stared in disbelief.

“What the…?”

“Hey, hey, house-lady!” a drunken gnome in red pants and a green shirt stumbled over, a Miller Lite ® in his chubby hand. “Wasss up?” This drew laughter from the rest of the gnomes.

“Wooo Hooo!” another gnome shouted as several of them started jumping on my couch. “Touchdown!” he yelled. Lucy was cowered in a corner.

“A lot of help you are, Mutt!” I scoffed at her. My harsh tone served to only back her further into her corner. “What do you think you guys are doing in here?” I gasped, not believing I was talking to statues.

“Hey, it’s freakin’ cold out there, Lady,” one piped up.

“Not to mention the Super Bowl is on! Come on. We never get to see the good stuff,” another chimed in.

I sat up to survey the room. There were empty beer cans stacked in a pyramid in the corner. My beige carpet was stained with salsa, bean dip, and who knew what else. The coffee table showed signs of abuse that could only mean gnomes never heard of coasters. A vase lay broken on the floor with a football protruding from the shards.

“What have you done?” I cried.

“Come on, settle down. Have a beer! Chip, grab the lady of the house a beer.” A diminutive figure struggled to climb onto the recliner next to me.

A small figure ambled from the kitchen, and unopened beer in his hand. “Hola, Chica!”

“I don’t even own a Spanish-speaking gnome!” I choked. “And put that cigar out! No wonder this house stinks!”
“No problema, Mamacita!” the gnome, who looked surprisingly like Cheech Marin, extinguished his cigar in my potted palm.

“Hey!” I exclaimed. “You guys are supposed to be Earth elementals. You’re supposed to take care of plants and stuff!” I stopped, realizing how odd this all was. I am talking to garden gnomes. Garden gnomes who have apparently taken over my house to watch the Super Bowl. Garden gnomes that have burnt a pizza beyond recognition in my oven, trashed my living room, broken things, and sent my happy if overzealous Black Lab into a corner.

“Don’t worry about it.” The Cheech-looking gnome called Chip patted me on the arm after jumping to the back of the recliner. “We got friends, Lady. We’ll call over some fairies and they’ll have your place looking fresh as new in a jiffy. Just have a beer and watch the game, okay, Amiga?”

Fairies? Now there were fairies? I gave up and slumped down in the recliner. Another gnome, one I always called Sleepy ,who watched over my Irises faithfully all summer long, waddled toward me with a plate of hot wings.

“Gerald made ‘em,” he offered in a small voice, holding the plate up over his head with both hands. I hadn’t eaten all day and they smelled great. As I bit into the first one I realized this was the first time Lucy wasn’t begging at my feet. One of the gnomes pulled back the lever for the recliner, setting me back and raising my feet.

“What’s wrong, Girl?” I looked over at Lucy in her corner. She slinked out of the room, only to return with my slippers and drop them at my feet. I'd tried to teach her this for months, but to no avail.

“Chester the Best-er, at your service, M’Lady!” A plaid-clothed elf removed his hat and bowed deeply, quickly replacing my black non-skid work shoes with fuzzy bear slippers. Lucy lay down contently at the side of my chair.

“So, these fairies,” I said between bites of chicken and slurps of beer, “do they do laundry, too?”

Word Count: 849