An Unexpected Knock on the Door

I was sitting home late this morning in a state somewhere between totally slacking and sort of working when there was an authoritative knock on the door. Upon opening the door I was confronted by two representatives of the GDAT (Gnome Department of Alcohol & Tobacco - gnomes are a peaceful sort and have no need for firearms) who gruffly showed me their tiny little badges and identification and asked to discuss a serious matter with me. They were well dressed in the black suit and tie indicative of government officials and proceeded to pepper me with questions about alcohol consupmtion at Short Pins.

You should probably know that when I agreed to let Frederick run his bowling alley, Short Pins, out of a little corner of my garage, I offered, at his request, to give him a small share of the bounty of the two nearest apple trees (the Cripps-Pink and Golden Delicious), in order to make a little bit of hard cider. I also told him that he could have any misshapen, bruised, or otherwise unusable apples that I had no use for. I gave him some old coffee cans and rubber tubing to help set up the cider making operation, had a sip of the first batch (a sip to you and me is a full glass to a gnome), it tasted pretty good.

Now in discussing this initially with Frederick he assured me that any cider produced would be for his personal consumption, or provided free of charge to his customers. Having an establishment with a liquor license on the premises seemed like an unnecessary hassle at the time, but I made sure to tell him that it'd be his tiny ass in a sling if some problem arose as result of his cider making.

For the last half of the year, the arrangement worked. I even gave him some of the blueberries from the fall harvest to add a little flavor to the hard cider. Turns out though that apparently after a few months, he had started charging his wee patrons for the hard cider, in flagrant violation of local liquor laws. Frederick hadn't struck me as the money grubbing type of garden gnome, so I was shocked to hear this. I came to find out later that he'd been doing this to try to raise a few bucks to buy a bunch black lights so he could have a Gnome Glow Bowl Night at Short Pins. How much can you really blame an entrepreneur for trying to make their business glow in the dark? And besides, everyone loves glow bowling.

The little detectives got a few more bits of information from me then proceeded to go out back chat with Frederick. As it turns out they gave him a small fine, since it was his first offence, and told that he'd better not try shenanigans like this again. I think he learned his lesson.