Our friend group has a new name.
We call ourselves the Gnomies.
For Laurie's birthday we dressed as gnomes and Roamed the Gardens.
We started at the Olive Garden, where our server seemed genuinely disappointed to learn that we didn't have another gnome set for her to wear.
We all decided that eating with beards is absolutely the worst thing ever, and we cannot understand why anyone would choose, on purpose, to have hair on their faces for more than one silly evening.
After our fill at the Olive Garden, we drove to the Cactus Garden at Ethel M. Chocolate Factory. Every December the chocolate factory decorates their cactus garden with Christmas lights (which... yikes. Can you even imagine that job?!) and we felt it would be the perfect place for gnomes to roam, but as we pulled into the parking lot, it became evident that hordes of other people wanted to roam there, too (though, not as gnomes). So, like good little gnomes, we swallowed our disappointment and turned around, unable to wait in the long line for tickets if we wanted to stay on schedule.
No worries, though. We're good at thinking on our feet, so we drove to the nearest Home Depot and roamed their Garden Center instead.
And we agreed that Home Depot was probably far, far more fun than the cactus garden would have been anyway.
I hope I never forget the way the garden center employee's eyes lit up as she saw us approaching. She tried to hold in her laughter until we engaged in conversation with her and broke the ice. Then, her laughs were free, and it was clear that her stressful, boring night had turned completely around.
At one point, while we were all heading to the bathrooms, we passed by an employee who stopped dead in his tracks and unabashedly watched us pass with a surprised and goofy smile.
Laurie turned to whisper in my ear, "We are bringing joy to people tonight."
And I almost cried with how true her statement felt.
It was an extremely quiet night at the Home Depot, which made each encounter meaningful. Throughout the night, parents would point us out to their children ("Look! Gnomes!"), others would point their phones in our directions to take pictures, and everyone seemed genuinely delighted to see us.
It was just what I needed to get out of a funk I'd been in for a while.
Because it feels good to make people laugh. It feels good to see their tired, bored eyes light up with some excitement.
And it feels good to be surrounded with good, wholesome women.
It was a magical night.
We then headed to the movie theater to see the new Trolls movie. Which, I know. Trolls are not exactly the same as gnomes, but we figured it was close enough.
The teenager at the ticket booth made us laugh because he remained stoic and didn't acknowledge anything odd about the situation when six middle-aged moms dressed up as gnomes approached him and bought tickets to the show. We even had a real conversation with him because we had mis-read the time, and he held his composure the whole time. After we purchased the correct tickets and turned our backs to the booth, the ticket guy slowly reached for a paper gnome that had been sitting out of our sight and sat it where we could see it.
He spoke no words about it, just held it there quietly waiting for us to notice. When we did, we laughed and rushed back to the booth to greet our gnome friend, and the teenager in the booth finally cracked a smile.
He told us after the show that we had made his night. His boss had come in earlier that day and hidden lots of those paper gnomes around the theater for the employees to enjoy, and he said when we showed up it brought the whole night together. When he learned that we had not been planted there by his boss, he laughed even harder.
It was certainly a night to remember.
And I will be forever grateful for my Gnomies.
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