The annoying buzz of my broken radio/alarm clock woke me from a very nice, comforting dream that had something to do with fluffy bunnies and cappuccinos and swords. The last two, at least, are a large part of my life. Well, the swords part only recently.
The snooze button was pressed several times, and I rolled amid the valleys of sheets, tangling myself into the pillows and comforters. A high-pitched whine began emitting from my radio, and I groped out, slapped the radio, then sat up, rubbing my eyes. My vision slid in an out of focus, and then I concentrated on the red digital numbers on my broken alarm clock. There was a six, and a four, and a three, which meant…I uttered a word that I couldn't repeat in any respectable company and swung my short legs out of bed, my bare toes hitting the chilly wooden floors that I adored. Hurrying to the bathroom - which was even colder than my drafty floors, considering it was in the farthest room of the house and covered in tile - I snatched my toothbrush out of the holder. I had to get my morning routine done in five minutes, before I had to wake everybody up. As I swiped my toothbrush across my teeth, I counted the toothbrushes set neatly into the three chrome holders. Eleven, not counting mine. Good, Izzy - my youngest daughter, more on her later - hadn't taken them out to play soldiers with. Whenever she used kitchen utensils and toothbrushes for toys, they usually ended up somewhere disgusting, like the toilet or the dog's dishes. I ran my fingers through my auburn hair quickly, having neither the time nor the inclination to pull a brush through the collar-length curls, and hurried down the hall.
"Okay, okay, okay, up, up, up." I said, clapping my hands and rapping on doors. The first door I passed was my youngest son's room, Joshua. He was a sweet little boy, with the plump, cherubic looks that only a seven year old can rightfully attain. His door was always slightly ajar, and one reason is because I like to see what he's doing inside his room. He has an alarming tendency that he only recently developed to make miniature explosions in his room; and the other reason is because the bunk beds I had to install in his room keep the door from shutting properly. Josh has been sharing a room with Merry and Pippin for the past month, and so far the arrangement has worked out nicely. The two little Hobbits have shown a fancy for Joshua's plastic army men, and not only do I find them in strange places (see: the flour bin and the refrigerator) but I'm constantly vacuuming them up.
The second door is painted an alarming shade of pink with several scribbled on graffiti near and around the edges of the door. The main focal point of the neon pink door is a large sign that's says "Beware of Wargs", which is our pet name for our two German Shepards. This is Izzy's room, my middle child - she's a funny little girl, rapidly approaching eleven years of age (God, I feel old). Of all my children, I worry about her the most. And it's not because of her strange habits of playing with spoons and toothbrushes, but mostly because she gets teased a lot. Izzy's constant torment in school was one of the deciding factors in my home-schooling all three of my children. Izzy likes to dress unusually, and when I say unusually, it's a bit of an understatement. Let's put it like this: her favorite outfit it a polka-dot pink ballerina skirt and a pea-green jacket, with mismatching purple knee socks and green clip-on hair-highlights that streak her shaggy blonde hair. Right now she's sharing a room with Alex, her older sister, who will be turning twelve next week. In my massive family, she's the one who always vies for my attention. With bone-straight, black hair that plummets to the center of her back, she has her father's striking good looks and her mother's attitude. (No, unfortunately, it's not the other way around). She's also toying the idea of being a novelist when she grows up, like me; only hopefully she'll make more money at it.
The third and fourth doors are connected inside, and usually I don't have to knock on these doors in the morning. Legolas and Aragorn share the left wing, while Frodo and Sam share the right side. Aragorn, the leader - for the most part - usually awakens the young Hobbits long before I get there. I swear to God, it'll be two o'clock in the morning and that man's prowling around downstairs with a dagger in his fist. He still gives me the willies; neither the books nor the movies capture that completely serious, penetrating stare that never fails to make me feel about this high. And it doesn't help that he's very, very, very handsome; not my type, but I still can't bring him in public. All of the waitresses and shopping clerks fawn over him constantly, and it's impossible to get anything done. Funnily enough, it's Aragorn who attracts more attention in the real world than Legolas; I had Doomsday in mind when I first brought Legolas to Wal-Mart with me, thinking of mobs of wildly squealing fan girls; but surprisingly enough, everything was relatively calm. So Legolas has become my official shopping buddy - but more on that later.
Boromir sleeps down in the basement, and he's usually up rummaging around in the pantry while I get up. Now, I know everyone thinks he's a total psycho, but the Ring's influence had a huge different in his personality. Actually, he's a great guy to sit down and have a beer with (he likes Corona and Sam Adams, two things I could have predicted.) And he's not bad to look at, either. I mean, I have to clap myself on the back occasionally for not jumping one of the many extremely handsome guys I have lying around my house all the time. And when you're a single mom, living with so many men becomes very awkward. And they are constantly, constantly, constantly, leaving the toilet seat up and 'adjusting' themselves in public. The toilet seat I could live with; the adjusting themselves? Not a chance. It takes every shred of my self restraint not to just stick a cactus in their hands and make them scratch themselves with that. But I'm getting off track. (Did I mention most of them have deplorable table manners? Erm, sorry, getting back to the story.)
The other strange thing that I didn't mention is that the One Ring of Power doesn't work in our world. I know, right? I had images of Boromir slitting all of our throats in the middle of the night and then becoming some sort of fascist dictator. But it didn't work, and Frodo became a markedly less-Emo Hobbit than he was in both the movies and the books. Actually, he's become quite Pippin-ish, running around with Joshua and the rest, and mostly making me into a sort of zombie janitor following them around with a mop and a broom. And Sam's a dear; I don't know how I would feed four extremely hungry Hobbits (Tolkien says they like to eat; that's an understatement. These people LIVE AND BREATHE FOOD.) along with an elf, two men, a dwarf (who eats almost as much as the Hobbits. This is quite an accomplishment, considering the Hobbits are much smaller than he.) and, not to forget, a wizard. Oh, I didn't mention Gandalf, did I? I ran out of proper bedrooms, so I had to make a bed for him on the couch. He's really nice about it, even though I specifically bought this house so I could have enough spare rooms for people. Oh well. He's very wise, and mysterious, and his tobacco is embedding itself in all of my drapes and my sofas. It's a good thing it smells like vanilla and cinnamon, otherwise, the pipe would be used for kindling.
The way I'm describing it makes me sound like a dictator, or something, but it's so hard to manage a household, raise three kids, and take care of nine fictional characters all at once. I check my basement every day to make sure something else isn't coming through, like Gollum or Sauron. At any rate, I'm getting off track again. It was a beautiful morning, and I was getting everybody up. I thundered down the stairs and nearly ran slap-bang into Boromir, who had just gotten out of the shower. He smelled deliciously of Old Spice ( I adore the commercials with Isaiah Moustafa, so I just had to get it for our resident characters. Even now, sitting here in my office, I still giggle when I think of Boromir holding up an Old Spice container and saying "The man your man could smell like!" Agh, getting off track again!) He was wearing a pair of old jeans and his tunic, which he had refused to part with and had been washed and bleached many times to get all the sweat and blood stains out.
The Hobbits and my children bustled down the stairs, chattering like a family of hamsters with their tails stuck in ice. (do hamsters have tails?) They grouped around the kitchen table, where I put my hands on my hips and began giving orders like a drills sergeant. "Alex, get your fingers out of your mouth please, or I'll put pepper on your nails. Sam, can you please open the refrigerator and get out some eggs? I don't have time to make breakfast for you guys this morning, so you're on your own. Gimli, take a shower today, you smell - no beard hairs in the strainer, buddy! - and same goes for you, Aragorn. Izzy, please take that headband off, it's garish."
"What's garish?" Izzy asked, unpinning the rainbow headband with three fist-sized plastic butterflies perched on it. She examined it with all the seriousness of a doctor looking for some strain of contagious, deadly germ.
"It means 'not something I want you to wear'. Joshua, honey, help Sam with the eggs, he can't carry three dozen at once. Do not, under any circumstances, blow up this house." (This part mostly aimed at Gandalf.) I kicked off my slippers and shrugged out of my bathrobe as I gave orders, and most of the male company in the room averted their eyes. I have no idea why they have so much chivalry (My body was once called 'petite', but after three kids I don't know what I'm called.) There really isn't much to see, not with a perfectly modest tank top and a pair of nylon yoga shorts. "Alex, I want that book report today at noon, don't you forget."
"But Mom!" Alex whined. "I have to help make breakfast!" She had a very valid point. Did I mention how much Hobbits eat? They eat a lot. And they eat constantly. It's like having four Golden Retriever Puppies bouncing around the house, devouring anything in sight. I swear, I think Pippin tried to eat a candlestick once because it smelled like plums. So making breakfast takes just about all morning, and making lunch takes all afternoon, and the Hobbits are always dipping in pieces of bread, taking cheese out of the refrigerator, and drinking more tea than I care to count.
"I don't care, you should have done it earlier. I have a meeting this morning, and if I'm late my boss will have my gizzards." I answered, throwing my fuzzy blue housecoat - which, admittedly, had seen better days - on the stairs to be brought up to my room later.
"What does 'gizzards' mean?" Izzy asked as she cracked eggs into a bowl while Sam was simultaneously whisking two bowls at once. I shouted behind me as I trampled the stairs, taking my housecoat up with me because our resident elf has a very nasty habit of sticking his nose where it doesn't belong.
"It means if I'm late, I'm dead meat!" I slammed the door and began stripping, throwing on clothes helter-skelter. I heard something break downstairs - probably a bowl, they were always going missing. I went out every week to buy new bowls and plates. You know how Tolkien said that Hobbits were nimble and quick? Well, not when it comes to dishes. At least when it comes to dishes they don't own. I'm not sure about their own 'sterling silver tea sets'.
I heard the faint noises of Gimli and Legolas bickering again, most likely over Gimli's hygiene. There was a shout, and the sink went on. Something probably spilled. Our two German Shepards, Lucifer and Gabriel (fondly titled 'Wargs'), bounded forward, eagerly ready to polish the floors with their slobbery tongues.
It was just another day in the Thompson household.
A/N: Theoretically, this story could last forever. It will essentially be a series of unconnected one-shots, in which complete and utter chaos reigns. This is my family and my household, and I am Emma, the main character. If you don't like the characters, tough boogers. It's my family, and if you insult them I'll come after you. This story will not be updated on a strict basis, because its just a humerous story to help me find my muse.
But none of this matters, as long as you… (say it with me)
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