It's A Simple Question, Really

The Queen can be a complicated woman, dear readers and loyal subjects.  This one of those things that I accept... mostly on behalf of those who live with and love me.  Frankly, if you hang around with me long enough, it's something you just come to terms with.  Most people are pretty good about rolling with the punches.  At least this is what I thought.  Apparently there are simply some days and some questions that those around me are not prepared to deal with.  Today was one of those days and I found one of those questions.  It started out simply enough.  MPH (My Poor Husband) and I were in the kitchen at lunch when I asked what seemed to be a simple and straight forward question:

Queen:  Have you seen Nigel, my gnome?

MPH:  Have I seen Nigel, your gnome?  Is that really the question you just asked me.

Queen (considering first in case it was a trick question):  Ummm, yes.  That was the question... Have you?

MPH (covering his face with his hands):  Other wives don't ask this sort of thing.

Queen: Of course they don't.  Nigel is MY gnome.  I'm sure they have gnomes with different names.  

MPH:  Yes, I'm sure that's it.

Queen: Does that mean you haven't seen him?

MPH (groaning): And just what does Nigel look like?

Queen:  Well he's about a foot tall.... but mostly he's a gnome.  I don't have another one so if you've seen one... that's him.

MPH (sighing): No.  I haven't seen your gnome.

Then Hanna, our au pair, made the mistake of coming into the kitchen.  Tired of MPH's obvious ignorance as to the whereabouts of Nigel, I turned to Hanna.

Queen: Hanna!  Have you seen Nigel, my gnome?

At this point Hanna, who's usually pretty nonplussed about anything I say or do... to her credit it didn't phase her at all that time I suddenly pulled out a pair of fuzzy leopard print handcuffs and started cuffing myself to things around the house and asking her to take pictures of me that one time (you can check out her photography skills by clicking here)... stared at me for a second then immediately turned to MPH, apparently in an attempt to figure out the correct answer.  Unfortunately for her, he just shrugged so she turned and told me that she hadn't.

Now, as far as I can tell, I asked a simple enough question.  Have you seen my gnome?  How hard is that one?  I even told them his name!  I was being all kinds of direct and helpful!  What was the problem?!  Mostly the problem seems to be that Nigel is missing and I wasn't sure where he'd wandered off to.  But it did remind me of a book I'd seen...

Yup, this is the one.  They really do have books for everything, people.  It's interesting too.  It's sort of like Night of the Living Gnome... without the brains parts.

Anyway, this is how my afternoon and evening quest to find Nigel started.  To my credit, I did know who I really should have asked... the baby.  The baby has taken a liking to several unusual possessions of mine.  She stole Nigel a while back and put him in her room.  She also took my gargoyle, Brutus.  In fact, I could ask HER for either of them simply by name and she'd know exactly who I was talking about.  She  may not like rabbits, As you can see by clicking here, but she does like gnomes.  Actually, it may be the fact that the gnome has a motion detector in him and plays this horribly annoying electronic version of It's A Small World when any motion is detected.  (At least he did until I stole his batteries to make him stop.)  So after having no luck searching her room and the rest of the house, I waited for her to come home from school.  And my wait was rewarded!  One simple question to her and she told me exactly where he was... in the TV room... on the exercise bike.  Why didn't I realize that's where a gnome would be?!  Silly me.  After that she and Nigel and I spent the evening together letting Nigel get reacquainted with the rest of the house.  Here's where he visited...

This is one of the bookshelves in my offices.  Gnomes LOVE bookshelves!

After he had his fill of the books though, he wanted to spend a few moments getting reacquainted with Seymour... my plant.

This shot let me know he was spending far too much time with the kids in general.  Apparently Nigel has become addicted to Angry Birds while I wasn't paying attention to his habits.  Gnomes... they just love video games.

According to the baby, they also like to be worn as hats.  Who knew?

After a long day of exercise, books, videos and hat impersonations, though, all good gnomes prefer to spend some time just shooting the breeze with the fairies.  Nigel is no exception.

Then as the end of the day rolls around, Nigel likes to be tucked in bed with the remote to veg out with the TV before going to sleep.

I don't know about you people, but a gnome's life seems to be a pretty good one to me.  And as far as Garden Gnome attacks, I'm pretty sure we don't really need to worry about any of that.  Now then, where did Nigel get to?