Charlene puffed aggravatedly as she stared out the window. The grass was a vibrant green fertilized by the rain, which had been pouring endlessly for the past week. Finally, now, the flood was over, leaving a brilliant blue sky with verdantly neon trees silhouetted against it.

And that was what pissed her off so much, she thought. It looked like Middle-Earth--

BUT IT WASN'T.

This is suburbia, ladies and gentlemen. My house is not an elven paradise, but a split-level in the middle of what used to be woods. There's a McDonalds across the street, and even if I squint my eyes and look in the opposite direction, pretty soon some damn SUV comes along and wrecks the whole effect. God!

She grabbed the rolling shade and yanked it down. As soon as she let it loose, it pulled itself free of her grasp and balled up into a tube again, vibrating in silent laughter.

"Aargh! Even blinds hate me!" she moaned, burying her hands in her poop-brown hair. She thunked her head down on the table. Next to it, a waterstained copy of The Two Towers mocked her with its stylized cover painting. "If I were in Arda, everything would love me," Charlene grumbled. "But our society has no room for pariahs like I. We just have to sit at home all summer and be…BORED!"

What in the world was there to do? There was absolutely nothing good on TV, once she'd gotten sick of Friends reruns. Jennifer Aniston ticked her off. The Internet was a pointless wasteland of sex toy ads and bad news reports. Clean her room? Yeah. HA. Thaaat would happen.

Suddenly, her list of activities was interrupted by a tugging on her Sketchers. She looked underneath the counter and saw the obnoxiously cute animal her parents had bought her for her fifteenth birthday. Charlene contemplated kicking it across the room, but instead grabbed the leather leash that dangled from its collar (eternal ease in avoiding puppy accidents) and kept getting wrapped around table legs.

"All right, a walk. Maybe you'll run under a bus or something," she sighed, tugging the idiotic thing to the screen door.

Outside wasn't much better. "Dog, I will bet you ten bucks that there are not dead worms on the pavement in Rivendell," she declared to the puppy as it bit the heads off of them. Keeping her head firmly turned above sidewalk level, Charlene marched on---

Which is why she almost would have missed the ring, if the beagle hadn't stopped to squat over it.

Soo…I know, you think y've heard this before. But. It will be better, cross my heart. Do RR…and flamers will be pleasantly humiliated later on!