Displaced

The tomten market is making a comeback. I was looking at my Christmas Things wish list on Amazon last week, and lo and behold one of the tomtens I bookmarked last year for possible purchase this winter is listing at $100,030.00. Another is now going for $290,024.00.

(If you aren’t clear what a tomten is, they are, in a nutshell, short Scandinavian awesomeness in hats who take care of livestock and security on farms.)

Now, tomten prices took a dive when everything collapsed a few years ago, but, like many luxuries of high living, they’re back on the rise. How can I tell? Well, there’s no exchange category for tomtens, since barn gnomes are not a commodity tracked by the US Department of Agriculture or anyone else except children (whose calculations can be, admittedly, inconsistent).

(It would be an insult if there were a market for them, really, being practically human as they are. And God knows you don’t want to insult a tomten: although, like the Mormons, their reputation has recovered from sometimes questionable practices of the past (in their case, violence to local maidens, not marrying them), they are still testy when not provided with buttered porridge, so let’s just everyone keep things civil and accord them the respect they deserve.)

In the absence of official market tracking, my tomten rebound data is somewhat anecdotal but so striking I think it stands. A jump from $29 to $100K+ is noticeable.

At first I was shocked at the inflation, but after a moment I realized that this is an appropriate market correction. Tomtens are, when you get right down to it, live-in farm hands. While paying a nearly $300,000 salary for a day laborer may sound steep, keep in mind that tomten work at night as well. Also, they’re magic, and you can’t put a price on that, am I right?

Of course it’s possible that these prices aren’t reflective of the larger market as a whole but a glitch in a server in Amazon’s subbasement,  but I prefer to think that tomtens are finally getting their due: civil rights – and possibly unionization – have brought equal pay for equal work.

Unfortunately, this uptick in wages puts them squarely in the 1%, so they’ll see a lot of the tax breaks they recently started enjoying disappear in the coming fiscal year, but we all have to pay a little to get a little, and tomtens’ socialist Scandinavian roots will have toughened them to a 40% tax bracket.

For my part, I’ve been priced out of the tomten market for the time being. I could get some livestock for our yard so I can write off my tomten as a business expense, but I’ll need to run that by my accountant to confirm. And R. He’ll probably want to have a say in introducing a cow to our twelve square feet of grass. I’m sure he’ll be fine with it though. Who wouldn’t want a cow if you already have a gnome to take care of it? No one, that’s who. This is going to be an awesome Christmas.