If you go to your bedroom and open the antique cabinet in there — you know, the one that was probably once used by Thomas Edison until Howard Hughes swept in on his gigantic flying cricket and stole it from him — I think you’ll be in for a surprise. I think you’ll discover that I’ve stolen your antique cabinet and replaced it with a timid gnome.

I bet you didn’t see that coming. I bet that when you tried to open the gnome, it probably bit you, and now you’re infected with Gnome Protein IV (GPIV.) Sorry about the deadly disease, but I bet you learned your lesson about trusting your furniture to not have been stolen while you weren’t looking.

Too many people think their furniture will stay where it is forever. Too many people — like you and Thomas Edison — are wrong. Too many people — like me and Howard Hughes — are likely to snatch away your furniture without a single warning. Some of us (e.g., Howard Hughes) leave nothing in return, while others (e.g., me) leave something that at first glance may appear to be furniture (e.g., a timid gnome) but on second glance isn’t furniture at all.

Luckily for us, most people never give their furniture a second glance. You singleglancers are the greatest scourge on our lands. I call you all to my house for appropriate punishment, probably involving avocado being stuffed up your collective noses. Nothing else is severe enough to train you in the importance of a second glance.

Well, sure, giving you GPIV would work, but my gnome supply isn’t what it used to be. You know, economic recession will do that to you. Ask Ben Bernanke, I’m pretty sure even his gnome supply is at critical levels. Rumors are that gnome prices may break $500 a barrel within the next two weeks, and at that point I’ll have no choice but to start hoarding avocados in expectation of a run on gnome alternatives.

Maybe I shouldn’t have revealed my avocado plans here. Maybe Billy Ray Valentine and Louis Winthorpe III will try to teach me a lesson and corner the avocado futures market. Maybe I need to learn the importance of keeping confidential financial strategies on my secret website, and not on one wide open to the public.

Or not. You guys with your gnome diseases won’t be around long enough to cause me any problems. Go off and get haircuts while you still can, and leave the futures market to me and the Dukes.