It's garden gnome day!

“Garden Gnome Meets Paris Hilton
Monday, April 18, 2005

He wasn't quite as well-traveled as the garden gnome in the Travelocity ads, but he came close.

Marianne Severson of Redmond, Wash., discovered a ring binder on her front porch the morning of April 2.

Entitled "Gnome's Spring Break 2005," the notebook was a travelogue of sorts, featuring photos of her favorite garden gnome posing with an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas, relaxing against the backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge, strolling on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and being held by waitresses at an unidentified Hooters.

Next to the notebook was a copy of People magazine with a Post-It note reading "Open Me." Printed in the magazine was a photo of socialite and TV star Paris Hilton holding her Chihuahua in one hand — and Severson's sleepy little gnome in the other.

Severson ran into her garden to see if the gnome, a unique specimen she had repainted several times, was still there. He was.

"We've been gnomed," she told her husband, according to the King County Journal of Kent, Wash. "We just sat there dumbfounded."


Kidnapping garden gnomes for exotic trips is a common prank in Europe, and a "Garden Gnome Liberation Front" active in France during the 1990s even pretended to take the little ceramic dwarfs back to their "native habitats."

Severson at first thought someone had staged the photos, especially the Hilton one, but her son found the identical photo in copies of People he bought in Seattle.

"That was the coup de grace," she said.

The gnome's story quickly got on the local news, which led to a break in the case. Someone at KOMO-TV knew someone who knew someone, and pretty soon there was a young man named Connor on the phone for Severson.

Connor admitted taking the gnome on spring break with a group of buddies, and explained they had run into Hilton at a gas station, trailed by paparazzi.

The young man and the older couple agreed to meet soon, but Severson had one request.

"Next time you go on spring break," she asked, "would you take my husband and I instead of our gnome?"


and if that wasn't enough gnome gnews...


Gnome Meets Burglar, Violently

LONDON (AP) — A grandmother stopped an intruder from entering her home by lobbing a heavy garden gnome at him, police said Friday.

Jean Collop was woken early on Tuesday morning by the sound of an intruder on the roof of her home in Wadebridge, southwest England.

"I grabbed the first thing that came to hand — one of my garden gnomes — and hurled it at him, and hit him," she recalled.

"He lay there and I began to scream. I went back into the kitchen and found a rolling pin in case he came down. I didn't want to break another gnome."

A neighbor alerted police who arrived shortly afterward and arrested the intruder.


First and second stories”

“I guess we'll see lots of pics of gnomes in Rome, soon?”

“....Strange....I thought there was a missing Pink Flamingo.....”

“I've still got that scam going with relatives in Ireland. My cousin's husbands brother's (got that?) gnome (at least a picture thats the same size) has been traveling around the states the past two years. It started as a "vacation from dreary Ireland" and now the little guy is on the run from the INS for overstaying his visa. Its been to New York, Tampa Bay (a Yankees game at Legends field), all over Southern Calif, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Death Valley, top of Mt Whitney, etc.

The actual gnome is still in Ireland at my cousin's house.”

“I have played that prank, but with someone's stuffed monkey. A group of us took turns taking him out on excursions. We would photograph him, then make a post card out of the picture and send it to the owner. He and his wife came to look forward to the postcards and started an album. (The wife was in on it unbeknownst to the husband. It was the husband's monkey that he used to keep on the back of his motorcycle.) Then one day they found out that the mailman was reading all the postcards and loving it. He would first share the postcard with the entire post office before he delivered it.

When I had him I took him to a Bulls game and to a tattoo parlor. I gave him a new tat on his little tag. The monkey also ended up in jail for "a situation" resulting from hanging with a bad crowd. One of those postcards showed him in court with a judge. I wrote back to his owner making jokes about spanking the monkey.

One of these days, I intend to send the couple a copy of the Barenaked Ladies song "Postcards from Chimpanzees." The song came out after our practical joke, so it's pretty funny how appopriate it is.”

“there was supposed to be a traveling gnome on the AT last year, but i didnt see it”

“I saw that on the local news, the Redmond gnome.

We did the same thing with a coworker's backscratcher. He went to Vancouver, TX, Vegas, So Cal, Disney Land, even space (well pretend space. One of those silly photo ops thing where you stand behind a big picture of a spaceman, face peeking through a hole.) Anytime anyone in the office was travelling, scratchy went with them for photos.”