The phone rang. “Dan Nguyen, Paranormal Tech Support.”

The voice on the other end tried to calm itself down. “Hi. Uh, gnomes keep popping out of my screen and running around my room breaking things.” Dan heard cackling in the background, then a vase shattering.

“Have you tried unplugging the computer and plugging it back in?”

“No. Let me -”

“I’ll hold while you do that.”

“…Okay. It’s plugged back in. It’s rebooting, and… And, yes, they’re still popping out of my monitor. One of them just strangled my cat.”

“Are you running Vista?”

“What?”

“Vista Home Premium Edition has a known issue where the startup manager will sometimes open a wormhole to Ssamath, the Land of the Dark Underneath and Hearth Home of the Nether-King of the Elves.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think you heard me — these are gnomes.”

“Are they about three apples high? Dark green skin? Sharp teeth? Do they smell like wilted rosemary?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, you have elves ma’am. Ssamathian elves. Gnomes don’t exist.”

“But I thought elves were like people except with pointy ears.”

“No ma’am. That’s just a stereotype perpetuated by Hollywood.”

“So these are Dark Elves – ”

“We use the term ‘Elves of Color’, ma’am. So: What you want to do is re-install Vista – ”

“Oh god, really?”

“Yes really. Then crush the skulls of the remaining elves with a cudgel carved from an Irish blue cedar that a dead man was once hung from. Go to the Home Depot, they should be able to help you out. Now, some of the elves will run away; what you want to do is leave a bowl of mead with a few colicky babies’ tears and some arsenic out overnight. That should attract the rest and wipe them out.”

“Thank you, I’ll give that a try.”

“You’re welcome. If you have any further problems, feel free to call. We Deal With What You Don’t Want To ™.”