THE LORD OF THE RINGTONES – THE E-COMMUNITY OF THE RINGTONE – CHAPTER FIVE– THE BRIDGE OF GESUNDHEIT

Our heroes began to walk down the twisting corridors of the Mines for a long, boring amount of time. Boromir's earlier statements appeared to be true. Even Gandalf was getting a bit disoriented, almost getting the group lost several times. Unless they stayed close together, the members of the party would start going in different directions. They eventually stopped in a small room to regroup and try to sort out where they were going.

"I don't understand why the computers weren't any more helpful," Gimli commented.

"This is no longer a mine," Boromir answered, twisting a laptop in the room to face his dwarven compadre. "It's a tomb."

And it seemed to be the case. Every single computer in the mines either couldn't turn on or displayed the Blue Screen of Death and couldn't turn off. With a cry, Gimli ran around the room, checking every single computer.

"What happened?" Sam queried.

Throughout this whole dialogue, Pippin wandered backward through the room. He finally found a red lever marked "Pull". Much to the chagrin of Mr. and Mrs. Took, Pippin had always wanted to be in Alice in Wonderland, and he saw this as his big chance. He pulled and waited to grow, shrink, or something. Instead, however, a high-pitched buzzing that sounded like his alarm clock on steroids reverberated throughout the building.

"Fool of a Took!" Gandalf exclaimed.

"It said 'Pull'!" Pippin tried to defend himself.

Before Gandalf could rebuke Pippin any further, a loud thud sounded in the hallway shortly followed by the pitter-patter of little feet.

"From what it sounds like," Boromir mused, "we managed to hole ourselves up in the smallest, weakest, most-difficult-to-defend place in the mines while innumerable dorcs and a cave troll attempt to break in and kill us. I'd say there's a 5 chance that one of us gets out alive. But I have good news," he added.

"What's that?" Legolas asked.

"I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico!" Boromir finished proudly.

"Speaking of which… where are the cars?" Merry asked.

Aragorn and Gandalf looked around innocently. "Uh…"

Before anything else could happen, the door began to shake on its hinges.

"Uh-oh," Pippin stated.

"Big uh-oh," Gandalf agreed.

And much long, boring fighting transpired, resulting in a dead cave troll, a significantly lower number of dorcs, and the discovery that Frodo liked to wear pink Kevlar undershirts that, although even Legolas now thought of him as a girly-man, saved his life. The nine raced out of the room.

"Wait!" Gimli cried. "What about Balin?"

"He's not important," Legolas said.

"What do you mean, he's not important?" Gimli responded.

"He's… dead," Aragorn exclaimed.

And with much lamenting on Gimli's part, they continued on.


Aragorn picked Frodo up, and the remaining eight ran on.

"Why are you picking me up?" Frodo inquired.

"You're hurt… well, you're not hurt, but you should be hurt, so I'm picking you up," Aragorn asserted.

Frodo still didn't get it, but he decided he'd go with it.

"Go down the escalator!" Gandalf commanded. "Wait for me at the bottom!"

They obeyed. Of course, there was some confusion as to whether this was an "up" or "down" escalator. In the Mines of Microsoft, nothing really worked the way it ought. This was all quickly cleared up, however, and they piled onto the escalator. When they looked back, they saw nothing except the light on Gandalf's staff.

When the Company got off the escalator, they saw a short set of stairs.

"Look! There is the bridge!" Legolas astutely noticed.

"Here comes Gandalf!" Pippin squeaked.

The gray-haired sorcerer appeared. "Yes, I am here."

"Did you figure out what was going on?" Gimli asked.

"I'm not sure," Gandalf said. "When I stood there, I could hear dorc-voices on the other side. I don't know what they were saying; they appeared to be speaking in their own ghastly language. All I heard was: ' 007 /-1)'."

"What does that mean?" Legolas asked.

"Kool-Aid!" Gandalf bellowed. "We must get to the bridge!"

"Which bridge?" Merry wanted to know.

"The Bridge of Khazad-Dum," Gandalf replied.

"Gesundheit," Pippin wished.

"Didn't we see that bridge on Engineering Marvels once?" Sam asked Frodo.

As they approached the bridge, however, he began to think that it was Engineering Disasters.

"Oh, no!" Boromir said. The Bridge of Khazad-Dum was twisting and rolling in the wind (which, as we all know, is very dangerous in the mines) as though it was the star of a bad adventure movie.

No one wanted to be first. Then Aragorn looked backward and saw a dark red light. "What's that?"

"Kool-Aid," Gandalf muttered. "I wonder what they meant." Then, louder, he announced, "We must cross the bridge!"

Everyone got down on his (or, for the politically correct among us, her, although that would be rather unnecessary as there were no females in our e-community) hands and knees and began to crawl. Aragorn led the pack, and Gandalf was the caboose, because, as you well know, he will soon become… dead.

As they were halfway across the topsy-turvy bridge, they saw something come up behind them. They weren't entirely sure what it was, but it looked like a giant red pitcher. It was almost man-shaped, and a power and a terror seemed to exude from it.

"Ai, ai! A Kool-Aid Dude! A Kool-Aid Dude has come!" Legolas shrieked like a she-elf.

All the Fellowship scrambled for the other side, but speed was a rare commodity as the bridge was dancing the Watusi.

The first eight reached the other side, but Gandalf stopped in the middle. Somehow, he managed to stand on the galloping bridge.

The Kool-Aid Dude advanced. Gandalf stood his ground, leaning on his staff with one hand and holding Clamdigger, his sword, in the other.

For several paragraphs, the Kool-Aid Dude stood there with a goofy grin and winked. It was enough to wrench the hearts of the most daring of souls, but Gandalf stood firm.

"You cannot pass!" Gandalf expostulated.

The Kool-Aid Dude smiled and winked again, stepped onto the bridge, and said, "Ohhhhhh, yeeeaah."

"You cannot pass!" Gandalf repeated. "I have lots of funny, bizarre, strange, and unusual credentials with which you cannot contend with. YOU… SHALL NOT… PASS!"

Gandalf thrust his staff downward. Due to an engineering disaster, the bridge cracked.

"Oops," Gandalf said.

The bridge collapsed, and both Gandalf and Kool-Aid Dude fell into oblivion. But Gandalf had one last piece of advice.

"MAKE LIKE A TREE AND GET OUT OF HEEEERE…."

The remainder of the Fellowship was so bereft that they didn't even notice the mixed metaphor. They made like a tree and got out of there.

And much long, boring crying transpired.