Cross-state gnome nabbers

September 13, 2010 10:13 PM

The fate of 100 or so confiscated gnomes held at the Gillette Police Department is still unknown. Three teenage girls confessed to the crime, but this may extend past state lines...

The auction, which sparked the interest of 'gnome enthusiasts' all over the country, also caught the attention of the Arvada, CO police department which has asked to halt the investigation. Coincidental?.
Perhaps the young ladies may have a good line of defense....

posted by hillabeans (36 comments total)

Gillette is a booming little gas-town in the middle of nowhere. I'd steal gnomes, too. Or I'd probably smoke pot behind the middle school and think about stealing gnomes.
posted by dual_action at 10:23 PM on September 13, 2010

I'd steal gnomes, too. Or I'd probably smoke pot behind the middle school and think about stealing gnomes.

And these proposed projects are mutually exclusive how?
posted by joe lisboa at 10:39 PM on September 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

This state violence against the Gnomish Liberation Front will NOT go unavenged!
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:44 PM on September 13, 2010

I feel sorry for that lady who had 200 gnomes stolen from her yard. Now all she has left are her flock of plastic flamingos, the ceramic herd of deer, three x-rated whirligigs, a concrete Manneken Pis fountain, and half a dozen plywood cutouts painted to look like fat ladies bending over.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:01 PM on September 13, 2010 [8 favorites]

What, no "Close Shave For Gillette Gnomes" head headline?
posted by Skeptic at 11:09 PM on September 13, 2010 [5 favorites]

ARVADA, Colo - An Arvada woman woke this morning to discover that almost all of her 200 garden gnomes have been stolen from her front yard.

"Sad, that you can't have anything nice anymore," Gibson said.

Maybe it was a concerned neighbor, thinking you should have different nice things. Diversity, spice of life, that sort of thing.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:17 PM on September 13, 2010

What, no "Close Shave For Gillette Gnomes" head headline?

Uh, I'm thinking the Gillette News Record probably gave up on the razor puns sometime in the first hundred years of its existence.

Which is to say, something something "lost their edge" something something "dull."
posted by Sys Rq at 11:24 PM on September 13, 2010 [4 favorites]

Those kids had better be careful. Garden gnomes have a posse.
posted by pracowity at 11:31 PM on September 13, 2010

I keep reading this as 100 confiscated genomes and thinking, gah, the future!
posted by hattifattener at 11:34 PM on September 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Leave it to Gillette to come up with the 200-gnome front yard. You can get just as much gnome out of a single statue--it's all marketing.
posted by maxwelton at 11:39 PM on September 13, 2010 [5 favorites]

Good on them. Gnomes lare demonstrably evil.
posted by shinybaum at 11:42 PM on September 13, 2010

What, no "Close Shave For Gillette Gnomes" head headline?

Skinhead Gnomes! The plot thickens .....
posted by mannequito at 12:21 AM on September 14, 2010

There's gnome more gnomes in the middle of gnomewhere, gnomesayin?
posted by jimmythefish at 1:19 AM on September 14, 2010

I want to know where the gnome-thieves stashed the goods before they were caught.

Where do you hide 143 gnomes?

(Should I take that to Askme, she asks innocently?)
posted by malibustacey9999 at 1:50 AM on September 14, 2010

For Gnomeregan!
posted by Harry at 2:54 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

The true nature of gnomes is unknowable; they are Superungnome.
posted by Tube at 3:04 AM on September 14, 2010

...they're gnomes for goodness sake, GNOMES!"

emphasis added, from the coincidental? link
posted by msconduct at 4:08 AM on September 14, 2010

I hung out with some girls in high school who did that exact same thing. Well, not exactly. They would play the Gnoming Song (7 Nation Army by The White Stripes) as they did it. Is this a prevalent problem with today's female youth????
posted by Midnight Rambler at 4:43 AM on September 14, 2010

Here are the culprits.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 5:08 AM on September 14, 2010

First they came for the gnomes, but I was not wee, so I did not speak up...
posted by felix betachat at 5:16 AM on September 14, 2010 [3 favorites]

Could rock music be involved? The public should be told!

Knocking the jockeys off the rich people's lawns, and before they get up I'll be gone.

Maybe these gnomes weren't racist figurines, but I think there is still plenty to link the two together. I move for a bad court thingy!
posted by asok at 5:38 AM on September 14, 2010

Apparently, there is a facebook.
posted by SPUTNIK at 6:12 AM on September 14, 2010

Where do you hide 143 gnomes?

First, be smart from the very beginning.
posted by padraigin at 6:32 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

In seriousness I do not know what to do with people who put gnomes in their yard without the understanding that those gnomes will be stolen. My mom has gnomes (and fairy doors, and like a million windchimes; she is that neighbor). I explained to her that some day someone would liberate them, and that it would be hilarious, and that they may or may not be held for ransom or taken on trips around the world and that she might get them back and might not (and that if I lived nearby, I would most likely steal them myself) and she refused to believe that this is a thing and moreover, that this is a thing people enjoy.

To me this is like not believing in Thursday. It is just a willful refusal to comprehend the workings of the world.
posted by padraigin at 6:39 AM on September 14, 2010 [10 favorites]

Across state lines? Does this fall under the Mann Act then?
posted by sourwookie at 6:58 AM on September 14, 2010

I'd like to put a couple of gnomes out front. Only I'd like to set them in concrete and coat them with industrial adhesive, so that over time I'd assemble a little montage of gnome-thief skeletons.

I figure if I start now I ought to at least have a dessicated corpse or two by Halloween. Let's just see the guy up the street beat that.
posted by Kadin2048 at 6:59 AM on September 14, 2010

Oh come on, industrial adhesive. Your're just going to collect a lot of dead leaves, maybe some raccoons if you're lucky. No, what you do is build trap doors in front of the gnomes. That's how we seriously collect gnome thieves. Later, by a combination of taxidermy and head-shrinking technology, we convert them into gnomes. It's the circle of life.
posted by grizzled at 7:11 AM on September 14, 2010 [2 favorites]

Okay, let's see how Travelocity can cash-in on this crime spree.
posted by ericb at 7:36 AM on September 14, 2010

Across state lines? Does this fall under the Mann Act then?

Actually, with gnomes it's the Wee Li'l Man Act.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:37 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Where do you hide 143 gnomes?

Maybe its because I just finished the game, but this question instantly had me thinking of Puzzle Agent (and subsequently the FBI's gnome squad)
posted by samsara at 7:46 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Most were from gnome enthusiasts that wanted to bid on them because, evidently, gnomes are a hot item.

God damn it. Why did my mind instantly Rule 34 this upon reading it? Sometimes I hate my brain.

In seriousness I do not know what to do with people who put gnomes in their yard without the understanding that those gnomes will be stolen.

It's certainly something to worry about, but the alternative is to go the route we did, which is to hide the gnomes all over the yard. In the long grass, wedged into the fork of a tree, balanced just under the roof...

Our goal is to have gnomes, without being obvious about it. Because we like the idea that someone might be looking at the front yard, see one, and then realize that there are actually many, many hidden around. Lurking... waiting... watching. My wife calls it the gnome army.
posted by quin at 7:57 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was going to say we need to start a "Free the Gillette 100" campaign, but it sounds too much like it might be about free razor blades,
posted by doctor_negative at 7:59 AM on September 14, 2010

You can get just as much gnome out of a single statue--it's all marketing.

Would this be a little gnome fact?
posted by orme at 9:31 AM on September 14, 2010

I was going to say we need to start a "Free the Gillette 100" campaign, but it sounds too much like it might be about free razor blades,

What makes it even more confusing is that Gillette is expected to introduce their 100-blade CentriFusion model (think old-timey rolly-blade lawnmower) in Q1 of 2011.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:42 AM on September 14, 2010

Where do you hide 143 gnomes?

A field. A pond. A swimming pool. My bedroom fantasies.
posted by pracowity at 9:54 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Bah. These girls should try carrying a gnome while getting shot at by a helicopter. That takes commitment.
posted by homunculus at 1:07 PM on September 14, 2010