You’ve heard of Elf on the Shelf. Now get ready for Gnome on the Roam.
It started out as a funny inside joke. Or at least it was supposed to be. Two best friends, wandering around Target and ending up in the dollar section, as poor millenials do. That’s where they saw them. The gnomes. One solid green and one solid blue. Each friend got one to decorate their new cubicles at their first “grown-up” jobs.
That’s when one of the friends started to take it too far. She named her gnome and began to post daily funny photos of him on select social media channels. Soon, she ended up as the owner of another gnome, a solid pink one that also called her cubicle home. With each year that has passed since that first fateful day at Target, her affection/affinity for gnomes has only grown and in the eyes of some, become worse.
When she purchased plane tickets for a trip to Europe a few months later, she realized her original gnomes were too big to take with her. Enter research. For hours upon hours, week after week, she scoured the internets for a gnome that was just right to take on her trip.
And then she found me. My name is Leroy. No seriously, that’s what she calls me. I know not where I come from or where I am going. I just know that I am along for the journey. Wow, that sounded profound.
I stand at a full two inches tall and hail from a box shipped from I know not where. I have a lovely green coat, blue trousers, and red hat that would stand at attention if it weren’t for the darn saggy tip. I always have a smile on my face and my hands make me look like a plumber (if you catch my drift (ha!)), but they lie. I am just a simple garden gnome, posed in the way I was molded.
From my perch high above the bedroom, I am taken and packed into my blue and green checkered travel case. It’s lined in velvet. (Quick side note: that’s not how it started. Before my case, I was just chucked/thrown/tossed into a purse pocket to rattle along, rubbing my face paint off against her phone, until I was needed for my photo.) Okay, back to my meaningful and purposeful story of how I came to be.
In the darkness I move. Only to emerge when she deems the time and place is right for a photo.
This is my story. The story of traveling and seeing the world, all from a 2-inch tall perspective. Sometimes I’m serious, sometimes I’m silly. But I’m always a gnome.
I hope you enjoy the inner musings that happen behind my seemingly empty eyes as they stare blankly at the camera.