Author's Note—This is supposed to be chapter seven. We did indeed skip three chapters. They are part of the boring driving ensuing at the end of chapter three. We had a joke for one of those chapters, too. It'll probably be included in the Appendices, if we ever get that far.
THE LORD OF THE RINGTONES: THE ECOMMUNITY OF THE RINGTONE – CHAPTER SEVEN – IN THE DIGS OF TOM BOM
"Frodo, are we there yet?" Pippin asked in his annoying irritatingly-Scottish accent.
"NO!!" three very annoyed and irritated hobbits replied.
"Can I drive?"
"NO!!"
"Can I park?"
"Pippin, we don't even know when or where we're going to park."
"Well... when we do park, can I park?"
"NO!!"
"You never let me drive!"
"You can't drive, Pippin."
"...So?"
"So THAT'S why you can't par—"
WHUMP!
"What was that?" Sam demanded.
"Something that went 'WHUMP!'" Pippin astutely remarked.
Sam just glowered.
WHUMP!
"I think it was the car," Merry stated.
"Cars don't go 'WHUMP!', Merry," Frodo replied.
"Well, yours just did," Merry retorted.
"Drive faster, Frodo!" Sam warned, but it was too late.
A large tree branch was plummeting towards the driver's seat window. With a WHUMP!, the branch crashed into the door and lifted the car high into the air.
"AaAaAaAaAaAaAaA!!!" the hobbits screamed.
"I think... it's... a Walloping Willow!" Frodo panted.
"Walloping Willow? Isn't that trademarked, copyrighted, or somehow legalfied and taken?" Sam asked.
"No," Frodo patiently explained. "It's not a Whomping Willow. It's a Walloping Willow. Walloping Willows are not taken."
"But it goes 'WHUMP!'" exclaimed Pippin.
"WHUMP!" said the tree with a timing that is nearly impossible to achieve outside of literature or film.
"Precisely. It's a Walloping Willow That Goes 'WHUMP!' ®. What is there to not get?" Frodo smugly replied.
"I don't care what it is! It's going to kill us!" exclaimed Merry.
"It can't kill us yet. The writers don't want to deal with thousands of rabid 'Rings' fans demanding an explanation for their mutilation of the series," explained Frodo.
"Don't tell them that!" exclaimed Sam. "They don't know that only five and a half people will actually see their parody, and even they will still demand an explanation for their mutilation of the series."
"Oh. Sorry," apologized Frodo.
"WHUMP!" replied the Walloping Willow That Goes "WHUMP!" ®.
Crash! The Tree with a Too-Long Name dropped Frodo's car on its side and started wailing on it.
Suddenly, the hobbits thought they heard singing in the distance.
Now whip it
Into shape.
Shape
it up,
Get straight.
Go forward,
Move ahead.
Try to
detect it;
It's not too late.
To whip it,
Whip it good.
The Tree Whose Name the Author Has Already Forgotten let a horrible shriek at the horrible song and shrank back into itself. Unfortunately for it, all it succeeded in doing was looking like a telephone pole.
"Help!" screeched the four hobbits pitifully.
"Hmm," the voice said. "Bad day to be you, eh?"
The hobbits glanced up through the wreckage. "Yes, it's an excruciatingly bad day to be us," Pippin confirmed.
"You do look rather unfortunate," the voice observed. "What seems to be the problem?"
"This big honkin' tree is wailing on my car!!" Frodo wailed, somehow managing to step out of character while his legs were pinned to the driver's seat by the steering wheel. The roof had been bashed in to the point that nobody could sit upright, so Frodo's head and upper back were atop Sam's lap. "I need to get out of here!!"
"Yes, I can hear the slashers plotting now!" said Sam.
"Can you get us out?" Pippin pleaded. He and Merry were also forced into uncomfortable closeness by the beaten metal.
"Yes, I suppose," the man said. "One moment." He pulled out the Jaws of Life—which he must have simply kept in his back pocket—and pried the car open to get them out.
"Your car is...dead," the man behind the Jaws of Life said. "And you are not." He extended his hand. "Tom Bombadil. My friends call me Tom Bom."
"Tom Bom?" Pippin's eyes lit up. "Like, Bon Bon? Pom Pom? Tom Tom? Fru-Fru—"
Tom Bom shook his head and looked at Pippin as if the hobbit had just announced that he had only eaten one breakfast. "No. Tom Bom."
"Can I call you Fru-Fru?" Pippin pleaded.
"NO!" four rather annoyed companions of Pippin exploded.
"So-ree!" Pippin pouted.
"Now I don't—now Frodo doesn't have a car!" Merry lamented.
"Good recovery, Merry," Pippin congratulated his cousin.
"Well, now," Tom Bom said, "It seems that you need a car. My wife is getting rid of hers—she just doesn't know it yet. It's Christine the Chrysler Crossfire."
Sam cleared his throat. "I don't mean to be ungrateful, sir, but I don't believe those have a backseat."
"Mine does," Tom Bom said.
The four hobbits glanced at each other worriedly, wondering exactly how stable Tom Bom was.
"I don't trust cars named Christine," Sam whispered worriedly.
No one answered, but it seemed to be the general consensus that Mrs. Bom's car was the only option. So they followed Tom Bom down the path through the woods, wondering why Mr. Bom was wandering about the forest. In the meantime, Tom Bom began to sing.
Hey merry derry cherry ferry kerry berry dol!
Jerry terry lerry very zerry werry dol!
Xerry sherry terry plerry perry cerry dol!
Querry herry nerry rerry yerry erry dol!
By the time they reached Tom Bom's house (which, coincidently enough, about coincided with the time that it was hard to come up with new –erry words), the hobbits were thoroughly frightened. A lovely elf-matron with platinum blond hair that must have come out of a bottle stepped outside.
"Come in, cuties!" she said warmly. "I am Whitegrape, daughter of the Reservoir." As the hobbits passed into her home, she spoke softly. "I know what you're thinking. He's always been like this. Thirty-seven psychiatrists have no explanation. You get used to it after a while," she sighed. She looked at her husband. "Shall I order pizza?"
"No, they'll only be here a little while," Tom Bom said, taking keys off the hook. "Here you go," he said, handing them to Frodo.
Whitegrape glared at her husband. "Are those my keys?"
Merry snatched them out of Frodo's hand. "Not anymore!"
Getting the impression that they had already worn out their welcome at the digs of Tom Bom, the hobbits piled into the gleaming white Chrysler in the driveway. Scarily enough, Merry climbed into the driver's seat.
Tom Bom was in the doorway, watching the hobbits enter his wife's former car.
"You sure Whitegrape won't mind us taking her car?" Sam asked, rolling down his window.
"Naw, she won't mind," Sir Bom replied. "I'd give you mine, but I'll need it tomorrow. Big movie interview. I'll get a giant part. My only competitor is some elven chick, and she can't act."
"I see," said Frodo, wanting to get out of there. He thought he heard some ominous clicking noises. "Well, thank you for your hospitality, Tom."
"No problem. Anytim—hi, honey!"
As Merry's latest acquisition sped off into the sunset, Sam noticed in the rearview mirror a rather miffed platinum-blonde reservoir-elf standing in a rather suspicious position. As they rounded a corner and trees shielded their view of the Bom household, one sound drowned out all others.
BANG!
Shortly followed by Pippin, to Merry:
"Glock. Nine millimeter."
Tom Bombadil was never seen or heard from again.
