Lord of the Couch. By JRR Tolkien

"If Frodo Baggins says goodbye, again, to one more hobbit I'm going to shoot myself...and take out a few other people with me". My wife Sheryl just groaned, stewing away in her own pain and trying to ignore my empty (unarmed) threats. It's what happens when people sit too long suffering through an entire day of non-stop TV...by choice no less. We weren't even sick with the flu or on forced bed rest trying to pass the time. It all began when we thought it would be fun to have a New Years Eve party involving our two teenagers and whatever friends they wanted to have over for the day and watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy back to back.
I remembered each movie being about three hours long and steeled myself for a butt numbing veg out of epic proportions. Now I love movies. I love the emotional impact and the visual beauty and the transportation to landscapes both interior and exterior that move me like few things can. I remember being rocked by the L.O.T.R. movies years ago and was looking forward a repeat. But doing the back to back thing was kind of daunting. Thank god it was dark, cold and rainy as it begged for the Great Indoors all day. To avoid the ordeal that the hobbits endured, staving off starvation by eating lembas ( geek reference to a sort of Elvish hardtack) we had prepared for the day. As Sheryl and I mounded bowls of pretzels, chips, guacamole, salsa, crackers, and hummus next to the gallon of assorted soda's onto our kitchen table, Corwin our 16 year old ordered the other teen staple of long haul movie watching...pizza. We planned for the movies to begin at 1pm thereby giving us plenty of time for stretch breaks/pee breaks/get outside and MOVE breaks plus a short dinner break. We figured that, as Frodo rode off into the sunset with Gandalf nine hours later (!) we would have just enough time to shout out our "Happy New Years!" by midnight. We planned wrong...for Corwin grabbed the 'Directors Cut' version of each film. You know, the one where Peter Jackson couldn't part with any scene...no matter how insignificant, tangential or LONG.
Have you ever seen the end of a marathon long after the winners have crossed the tape? Where the runners barely arrive, exhausted and flagging, soaked in sweat? That's what we had prepared for...the 26 mile as kicking of a 9 hour movie day. We hadn't trained much, not owning a TV and all, so we knew that there would be some end of the day fatigue. But we were not ready for the Ultramarathon of the Peter Jackson version of L.O.T.R. Have you ever seen the end of an ultramarathon? Probably not as watching people run non-stop for 100 miles doesn't make for very interesting television. The finishers of an ultramarathon look, well, bad. Incontinent of stool, poop running down their legs into their shoes, gaunt and dazed and skeletal they look a lot like the ER patients I see. Our 9 hour marathon had just become the ultramarathon of moviedom. And while the adults in the room shifted nervously, the teenagers couldn't believe their luck. Twelve glorious hours of couch surfing, TV and junk food all sanctioned and encouraged by the adults who always nag them to turn off the electronics and go outside for some exercise!
As Sam and Frodo began their long and epic journey I was starting to relate to them. A dark and painful road lay ahead. By the middle of the second movie, six hours later, we had shared many ordeals; black riders, bands of murderous orks, a guacamole shortage, the end of the Dr. Pepper, the wandering eye of Sauron and the onset of 'flat butt syndrome'. A painful and debilitating disorder characterized by numb ass cheeks, agitation of the lower extremities and a strong desire to spank yourself. By the end of the 3rd movie, approaching 2:00am, the pain of Sam and Frodo baking in the lava fields of Mt. Doom paled to our own agony of indigestion, arthritic joints, muscle atrophy and chair sores (a lesser known form of bed sores). But just as the love and friendship of Sam and Frodo deepened through shared hardships, so did those of our family. In the future they might not sing songs and write poems about our ridiculous yet heroic movie day, but it will be remembered for a long time to come. Roll the credits!