Target Gnomes

I had a friend whose grandpa used to talk about gnomes a lot. Indeed, he was plagued with them. They took his car keys, misplaced his TV remote, and hid socks (which earned them the title of “Sock Monster” in certain circles. That’s a misnomer. Or, misGnomer, as the case may be. But I digress). At first I thought he was just senile. Then my dad saw gnomes.

They were in his hospital room a day or two after he fell off the roof. He got a wild hair up his arse one Thanksgiving weekend and decided to clean the gutters. He picked a lousy weekend…it had been sleeting and snowing. I think he was just about to put his weight on the ladder to climb back down when the ladder slipped out from under him. For one split second, I saw him hanging onto the gutter with one hand, dangling like an ape over our driveway. It would have been funny if I knew he wasn’t going to fall, or if he had been hanging six inches above the ground or if there was one of those big inflatable stunt-men pillows under him. But no, he landed on his back across the ladder on our concrete driveway. I was sufficiently freaked out.

The ambulance driver that came to pick him up was my sister’s ex-boyfriend from high school; we got to catch up on the way to the hospital, which was nice.

A day or two later I came to visit dad in the hospital, and he was all doped up on some pretty heavy duty drugs. I mean, the dude was just loopy. He looked at me through his half-open eyes that gave the impression that he had just smoked a fattie with a couple of doctors and maybe a nurse or two, regaling each other with tales of meeting Jerry Garcia.

“J, the gnomes visited me last night.” He said. Baffled, I sat in silence.

“I remember them showing up as I was falling asleep. They built a fire at the foot of my bed and danced a little bit. I think they sang a little gnome song or two. I’ll admit, the whole thing was a little odd. But the weirdest part was that it didn’t concern me in the least. It just seemed natural to me, and I remember thinking ‘Of course they’re here. Where else would they be?’”

I have had limited experience with gnomes. Until yesterday, that is. They showed up at Target. You see, I wanted to bring a touch of “me” to my cubicle. If I’m going to spend so much time someplace, I want it to feel welcoming. I wanted three items; some brightly colored coffee mugs (one does want a hint of color in an otherwise blandly-beige world of cubicles), a groovy lamp, and some sort of toy. Target seemed just like the place to go.

I found the mugs first, then I headed over to home furnishings where I found just the lamp I was looking for. It has a brushed stainless-steel base and a cracked glass tube that sits on top of the base, on end. So the bulb sits inside, shines through the glass, and up through the top. But the coolest part of all? It has a touch base! Touch the base with any part of your body, and it lights up. Now, there are some parts of the body that should not be used for this purpose at work but that really doesn’t need discussing. I found the last boxed item on the shelf and tossed it in my cart.

Now all that’s left is some cool toy. I head over to the toy department and know it’s going to take a second to make my selection. Toys are serious business, especially when you take them to work. It needs to reflect your personality, your fun-loving nature, yet not make you look like a total and complete tool. It took about 10 minutes, during which time I left my cart sitting at the end of the isle I was in, and then I found my toy.

I walked back to my cart….wait. Wasn’t my cart right there? Maybe I left it a few isles over? No….not there either.

OK, now I’m pissed. Someone harked my cart. *GASP* SOMEONE STOLE MY LAMP! The last lamp on the shelf! It’s a one of a kind…at least, in this Target store!

If you had been at Target on Victory in North Hollywood yesterday at approximately 5:05 PM, you would have seen a guy doing speed-walking laps around the outer isle of the store, glancing into every cart he saw, mumbling obscenities under his breath. Yeah, that was me. I sort-of “stepped outside myself” for a moment (we can use phrases like that here in California with impunity) and saw how weird I was behaving…I looked like a low-functioning adult who lost his baseball. Except my “baseball” was my lamp. And I didn’t care that mothers were pulling children away from me and standing protectively between the children and me. I was pissed, and I HAD TO FIND MY LAMP!!!

After 40 minutes I gave up. I headed up to customer service so they could tell me which stores in the greater Los Angeles area to which I’d have to drive to find my precious lamp. If I had to drive an hour to Long Beach, I didn’t care. I was going to have my lamp. I was giving them the item number when a guy in khakis and a red shirt walked up and said “Is this the lamp you’re looking for?” I smiled, and practically jumped up and down with euphoria. I may have hugged the lamp…you’d have to review the security tapes to find out. I was so lost in joy that I nearly blacked out.

I asked this nice man where he found my lamp, and he just smiled and walked away. Now, As many details as I may have embellished in this story, this detail is not one of them. He smiled….and walked away.

I’m convinced a group of gnomes were standing on each other’s shoulders under that Target employee uniform. And there was a target employee named Stan gagged and bound in the back storage room, wearing only his skivvies.

They’re mischievous buggers, those Gnomes. Be careful out there.