If Side-Eye Were a Gnome
Yesterday the Weather App told me that the previously frigid air that has chilled my bones for the last five months would reach a high of 48 degrees. Forty. Eight! That’s nearly fifty! To celebrate, I decided to skip over to the ponds near our mall to visit my goose friends. A few of the toughest, most badass of my feathered friends forgo the annual trip to southern, warmer climes, and stay here to lift my spirits through the winter. Every time I pass the ponds I shout “Hi friends! Thanks for being badasses!”
I thought it would be super cute to take a couple gnomes and do an adorable little photo shoot with my feathered friends and the tiny pals. So I packed two new buddies in a ziploc bag (this will become important later) and headed off. It was quite windy near the pond; windier than I thought.
I took one sweet little chum out of the bag, and was working on getting a good placement near the pond’s edge and an angle that would show the geese in the background. WHOOSH! A wind gust surprised me and lifted the ziploc that still contained a nice, dry, clean gnome, and splooshed it into the pond. Holding one gnome in my hand and leaning over to save the gnome in danger, my foot slipped on the slimy ooze near the edge and I pitched sideways, trying to right myself with THE HAND THAT WAS HOLDING THE ‘SAFE’ GNOME. There was flailing and laughing and splashing and so-much-mud and several loud adult words.
Here’s what I would like to point out: the entire time that I was in drowning-gnome distress, my “friends” the geese DID NOTHING. They just gathered near the center of the pond and watched my muddy dance of danger. Did they make the slightest effort to help? Perhaps swim up and push the ziploc to the shore? Give me a honk of support? Nothing. They watched. These freaking birds that I’ve called friends for YEARS…that I bring frozen peas and blueberries to in the summertime…that I holler Hello, Friends! to every stinking time I pass those ponds…this fowl gaggle simply sat and mocked my pain.
WELL GUESS WHAT FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS- I didn’t need your fickle feathered tooshies. I found a stick and that stick and I rescued our gnome friend all by ourselves!
Upon removing the gnome from the bag I realized it looked very much like this little buddy had watched the entire escapade and was giving me major side-eye. I get it, Pal, I get it.
Epilogue: The gnome friends, while enduring a harrowing afternoon, are home safe and sound, having submitted to cleaning and fluffing, and are ready to head to their new homes. The geese? Well, I can’t stay mad at them, so I’m going back tomorrow with a bag of frozen peas as a sort of olive branch. I’ll probably even shout, “Hi, friends!”