Personal whimsy has sometimes led me to petty crime.

I occasionally lack impulse control.

I have to own to being one of those annoying college students who stole garden gnomes. Well took them for a walk down the street to swap them with another person’s garden gnomes is more like it. IMHO garden gnome swapping should be something practiced in all Australian suburbs, at least everyone can get some entertainment over rearranging their gardens around the new visitors. I have always imagined that most people would find their day a little more interesting rocking out to the car only to notice their gnome had morphed into a toad or a ceramic cat. Like a taste of modern day suburban magic.

The only reason I don’t dabble in petty crime more often is … well I have been well trained and indoctrinated. I have a super-overbearing-conscious that was religiously constructed for me in my youth. I know not every brain is wired like my own … my thoughts drift from how amused I would be to discover the crockery in my garden has fled to considering how some peeps would stagger out , notice the intrusion and feel nothing but irritation, violation… maybe anger. Heck worst case scenario is that maybe a little old man would have actually valued some crappy piece of pottery he had left rotting in the garden, maybe it was an important gift from an important person… maybe he would be left wandering the streets seeking his lost gnome.

Then lost inside the complex tale the over-conscious has spun for me I feel sad.

Mind you there is nothing to say i can’t just give go-home-gnomes away freely. Hmmm actually from now on I will make a pact to start a personal tradition of off-loading old ornaments in other people’s rock gardens whenever I move house, you know for the cause and all. Maybe I will sucker some friends in on this venture.