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Last night was a bitch.   I was going for the Guardin' Gnome achievement in Left 4 Dead 2.   For those who aren't familiar with it, you have to win a garden gnome (Gnome Chompski, from Half-Life 2 Episode 2) from a shooting gallery in the second level of Dark Carnival, then escort him all the way to the end of the campaign, get him on the helicopter, and get the hell out of there.

Can't be that hard, right?   Well, it's not hard per se, but it takes dedication and it could definitely be easier.   You see, you have to carry him as your active item; you have to drop him if you want to shoot, and you can only shove zombies back with him.¹   This obviously takes a fair amount of time and can try one's nerves.

I got through the fairgrounds with no problem.   The tunnel of love was also a piece of cake.   I made it through the roller coaster and felt like a champion--it should be noted that the Director is a sick bastard and threw a significantly larger horde at me with the gnome than I had ever experienced without it.²   I made it to the safe house following it and everything was good.   Then things got not so good.

You see, when you get to the safe house, as long as the gnome is inside when the door closes and the level ends, the gnome will stay with you on the next level.   This, despite what you may be expecting me to say, is exactly what happened.   He was there.   Just as creepy as ever, but I was still holding him and looking at his shiny little face.

I wandered over to the health kits and guns, sat him down, healed myself, reloaded, grabbed more ammo, turned around and...   and...   Amber Alert!   Gnome Chompski is missing!   He just disappeared.

I searched all over that safe house, which is barren, and only found a tear hiding in the corner of my eye.   Anyone who's played this level has more than likely noticed that this safe house (from the beginning of The Barns) has questionable collision detection in reference to its walls.   The arms, legs, and heads of the infected frequently poke through, so I thought that when I dropped the gnome--which is actually a throw--he might have gone through the wall for some reason.

I rushed outside and began searching the shrubbery on the other side of the wall, but it was no use.   Chompski was gone.   We had good times, such as luring the infected out of nooks and crannies in the tunnel of love for the AI to riddle with bullets and bashing Jockeys to death in one hit; we had bad times, such as getting separated by the hand of a Tank.   But in the end, all our struggles were for naught, as he was snatched from my warm embrace and glitched out of existence in the blink of an eye reload of a magazine clip.

Gone, and so close to Christmas.   A shame.   Memorial services will be held Sunday from 11 to 3 at Riverside Methodist Church.This all rather pissed me off.   Dark Carnival is perhaps my least favorite campaign behind Dead Center, and carrying that damn gnome is less fun and more grind.   I'll get it eventually, but it's whenever I decide I hate myself enough to spend an hour trying.

I should have killed myself so that I'd restart at the safe house and hopefully have him, but I didn't; it's my biggest regret in life.

I also found it interesting that the Director is enough of a condescending prick that he took pity on me and made that last gauntlet of the level a cakewalk compared to normal and compared to the earlier roller coaster run.