Clean, You Fools!
James Norrington & Saraman; 2002
The Fellowship was fleeing from the Orcs in the Mines of Moria, and Gandalf, who was a neat freak, wanted to wash his socks.
"Does anybody have any Tide?" he asked. No one spoke. "Very well! It looks like I'm the only one who stays clean around here!"
They spent the night in a guardroom. Legolas was set on watch duty for an hour, and before Gimli went to sleep, he thought he could hear him softly singing: "Sixty-one bottles of dorwinion on the wall, sixty-one bottles of dorwinion, take one down and pass it around, sixty bottles of dorwinion on the wall…" Gimli also thought he heard Gandalf talking in his sleep saying, "My socks are clean, I use Tide!"
The next morning, or what they thought was morning, they got up and started running.
"Doi, doi, doi!" said Aragorn. "I love my daddy!"
Suddenly, Elrond appeared and yelled, "I am not your daddy! And don't you ever speak of it again—or you can't marry Arwen! You…you…daddy's girl!" Then, he disappeared.
"Uh-huh," said everyone. "That was…interesting."
Legolas was behaving very strangely as well. He was convinced that there were Orcs nearby, and that he had found a set of suspicious footprints to prove it. He kept affecting a studly scowl, pulling arrows out of skeletons, and saying fervently, "Goblins! Orcs! Yrch! Orch! Glamhoth! Et cetera…"
Meanwhile, Gandalf was murmuring to himself about HIGHLY IMPORTANT MATTERS, such as: "Oh my! All this running around is bad for socks! They're—gasp!—getting dirty! Oh no! I just said the d-word! I must clean my mouth out with soap, at once!" With that, he pulled a large bar of soap out of his pocket and stuffed it in his mouth, sucking on it for a good hour.
The Orcs finally caught up with the Fellowship and surrounded them.
Gandalf approached an especially dirty Orc. "Inspection! AHHHHHH! Didn't your mother ever teach you how to keep clean? It appears you HAVEN'T TAKEN A BATH IN A MONTH!"
"What's a bath?" the orc asked, in its guttural tone of voice. Gandalf was overcome with horror, and he began to feel that he might retch if things didn't improve within the next few seconds. Pulling out another bar of soap, a rag, a bucket, and a HUGE water cask, he began to clean some dirt off the orc's face. Without warning, the creature told him off with a ferocious growl in the face. Its breath was so foul, Gandalf fainted. Legolas smugly strolled over and poured the soapy water upon Gandalf. When the wizard had recovered, he shouted, "AHHHHHHHHH! Haven't tic-tacs been introduced to the Orcish nation yet? One more whiff of THAT, and I'll die for certain!" Then, Gimli walked up to the orc leader and breathed on him. His breath was SO REPULSIVE the Orc leader, gasping for air, ordered a retreat.
Subsequent to these events, the Fellowship escaped and ran for the bridge of Khazad-Dum. The Balrog pursued them. Merry, Pippin, and Sam, who smelled SO HORRIBLE from the incident of "Sam's Revenge" (See our OTHER story which bears this title), effortlessly chased the Balrog away. It fled to the depths of the earth, looking for a good place to die, which it did soon after.
The Fellowship made it to the bridge, and everyone ran over it, except Gandalf, who was a neat freak, and was trying to clean some dirt off the side of the bridge. He accidentally slipped off.
"Clean, you fools!" he yelled, as he fell.
"We must obey his last command!" Aragorn shouted with authority. Therefore, everyone ran out of the mines and started to clean the dirt, the rocks, and the trees.
"Where's the Tide?" Frodo mumbled begrudgingly as he went out to clean his socks.
–The End–
P.S. This story is what really happened. To preserve the Fellowship and Gandalf's honor, the story was made up of how Gandalf was lost fighting the Balrog. We are pleased to say that the Fellowship has cleaned 1/10,000 of the world so far. Only 9,999/10,000 more to go. Keep up the good work, guys!