the angels garden gnomes, part 2

so today . . . i slept in, because you know, i was up really late last night blogging. when i finally got up, i wandered down the hall to the man room where rollie was working, and said, "did you see the angels garden gnome?" because i was still kind of excited about it. "yes," he said. "i can't believe you guys opened it!"

wait a minute. what? why wasn't he pleasantly surprised by this unexpected gift?

while i was having this conversation with rollie, diandra was at work talking with doug, our associate pastor . . . "hey doug--did you have a garden gnome on your front porch this morning?"
"um, no . . . "
"are you sure? did you look in the bushes? because that's where ours was." but he said no, he was pretty sure there was no garden gnome lurking in their bushes this morning . . .

in the mean time, i was trying to figure out why rollie was acting like i had opened his mail. "it wasn't addressed to you," i said. "it was addressed to m***** or current resident. we thought it was probably some kind of promotional thing."

"no," he said. "that was from the game javi and i went to. it was garden gnome night, but something happened and the gnomes didn't get there in time for the game. so they gave us cards to fill out. and then they said they would mail them to us."

oh. ok. but you see, he hadn't mentioned that to me.

"it was really funny," he continued, "because the crowd booed."

they booed? angels fans?!?! i find this hard to believe.

"yes," he said. "they had all these promotional video clips to show on the big screen starring the gnomes, but none of us had any. so every time a gnome video would play, the crowd would boo."

group bonding at it's finest!

diandra came to lunch with us and told us that doug didn't get a gnome. she was still under the impression that possibly gnomes had been delivered to everyone in orange county. so we filled her in on rollie's part of the story, and then rollie said, "javi should be getting one too." her face lit up as she envisioned a gnome of her own . . .

. . . because javi is in texas doing army stuff right now, and i am pretty sure he did not have his gnome delivered there. diandra immediately texted his dad to find out if his gnome had arrived. two minutes later, her phone rang. it was javi's dad. diandra didn't say too much, but the expressions on her face said it all. i was pretty sure the gnome had been delivered, but something terrible had happened to it. their conversation went something like this--

diandra said, "javi should be getting a package from the angels."
his dad replied, "well, i got a package from the angels."
"you did?" she said. "was it a garden gnome?"
"yes, but it was addressed to me. i think it was from kaiser."

javi and his dad have the same last name, so perhaps his dad saw that and thought, "oh, for me!" and kaiser had sponsored the give away, so it did have their name on it . . .

diandra continued. "well, kaiser sponsored the event, but it was from the angels. javi signed up for one when he went to the angels game with my dad a few weeks ago."
"oh," javi's dad said, "well a funny thing happened..."

i was pretty sure that whatever followed was not going to be funny. but i confess that when we finally heard it, it did make us laugh. he said, "after i opened it up, i put the gnome on the mantle. but it wasn't too heavy, and so it fell off. i tried to catch it, but i didn't make it in time." this is the point in the conversation where diandra's face couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry! she knew the gnome had probably met with an unfortunate end, and yet she kept picturing javi's dad diving across the room, matrix style, arms outstretched, trying to catch the gnome.

"but don't worry," he said. "sam (javi's brother) is digging it out of the garbage!"

her poor face couldn't settle on an emotion, because if the gnome was in the garbage, perhaps it should just be left to rest in peace. but she was also picturing sam trying to retrieve it. from the garbage can.

"it isn't too bad," javi's dad said, "the tip of it's hat broke off, that's all."

i don't know--this may be one of those situations where you had to be there, but diandra and i have been laughing about the garden gnome situation since last night! it's mysterious appearance on our doorstep--well, technically in our bushes--started it. then we opened it and put in on our mantle, which is exactly what javi's dad did! while our gnome didn't make a run for it like his did, we thought it was pretty funny that both of us put our gnomes on the mantle instead of in the garden where they clearly belong.

we thought it was so funny that diandra called javi to fill him in. he was sleeping--he had just arrived at ft. bliss last night after a two day convoy from wherever he was before that, so he was pretty tired. we heard her telling him the whole story, and we were laughing. and when she finished the story, he said, "so the gnome got there?"

clearly he was focusing on the wrong thing!

diandra and i both love the gnome but are also a little creeped out by him. diandra swears that his eyes follow you. we think he might have mysterious magical mind controlling powers, since both gnomes got put on the mantle. she is going to rescue the damaged gnome from javi's dad, and we are going to take him on adventures this summer, kind of like flat stanley. so you haven't heard the last of the angels garden gnome. he will be back . . .

. . . we can't help it. it is those blasted mysterious magical mind controlling powers . . .