The Great Gnome Adventure Story

This week, I read a news story about a family whose 4 year old left a stuffed animal behind at a Holiday Inn Express here in Virginia.  They contacted the hotel and were surprised to get back pictures of the stuffed animal (puppy) having quite an adventure enjoying all of the activities at the hotel.  The family was thrilled to see how the staff went above and beyond for their guest staging pictures all over with the toy.

It reminded me of a great story our neighbors told of their garden gnome that had been stolen.   A week later, they got a photo in the mail of their gnome in England along with a note of what he’d been up to.  Another two weeks passed and a stack of photos arrived, showing the gnome they recognized but this time in San Francisco in front of a half dozen different landmarks and again with a note.  This went on for more than a year.  Their friends had made arrangements with everyone they knew who was going to be traveling to take the gnome along, take some pictures and to send them back and they’d write another note.  To cap off the adventure, they sent a limo with the gnome inside back to its original home.  Those are good friends who will go to that length for a laugh.

A tip of the hat to the people who pulled off the gnome adventure and a big congrats to the staff of the Holiday Inn Express for taking a few minutes to make someone’s day.  If you ever get a chance to pull this on your friends, do it.  It was quite a hit.