Not all of us enjoy dances on inescapable boats in the middle of large rivers with multitudes of people and loud music and bright lights. Some of us would prefer to watch all 12 hours of the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings with a couple friends instead. Here's how it went down.
Friday night, 9:10 P.M.
Five people begin a journey that some will not complete. Our own trip to Mordor, as it were. The Fellowship of the Ring is turned on. As one of our group said, "Yes, I would like to watch 12 hours of film injected into my eyes, please."
10:30 P.M.
We are joined by two others who finally finished their homework. One is an aficionado of all things Middle Earth, and we are treated to glorious commentary as we proceed.
11:30 P.M.
We are told that we cannot use the kitchen after midnight and all of our carefully chosen snack foods must be moved to a different fridge. We pause The Fellowship of the Ring and travel across campus to a refrigerator that is not our own, where we place our milk and frozen mozzarella sticks and make the journey back to finish the first movie.
Saturday morning, 1:00 A.M.
Everyone is back and asleep from the dance, and we have only just begun. We finish The Fellowship of the Ring and decide to take a break from watching movies so that we can revitalize ourselves enough to continue. We play Dungeons and Dragons for an hour while The Two Towers downloads.
5:00 A.M.
Four brave souls journey into the glaringly bright world above in order to bring back ample amounts of Dutch Bros coffee. In the words of one member of our party, "We're getting morning coffee because it's night time."
7:00 A.M.
The two latecomers leave for a spiritual retreat after having taken brief naps. Another chooses rest and is escorted home. We finish The Two Towers.
8:30 A.M.
Four remain. One is mostly asleep, and in response to being asked if he is okay, says, "Ya'll's still Wal-Mart and I'm Gucci" and falls back asleep. Only one of the four has not taken at least a 15 minute nap. Our bodies cry out from lack of sleep and care, but we resolve to complete our task and begin The Return of the King.
11:06 A.M.
With an hour left of the movie, the download glitches. Return of the King must be redownloaded from scratch. We know we cannot hold out that long. Temporarily defeated, we pack up and retreat to our beds, determined to try again after napping.
Saturday night, 10:05 P.M.
Four stalwart marathoners gather at a different location to watch the final hour. We nod in satisfaction and head back to bed.
Are we crazy? Yes. But to quote an anonymous movie-viewer, 2:30 A.M., "This is what I'll be thinking about when I'm 30 and alone." So really, all things considered, this was an investment in our futures.
