# You Know You've Been Spending Too Much Time in Middle-earth When...



## frodolives7601 (Aug 27, 2020)

...you drive by a self-storage company and think that the sign in front says "Elf Storage"! This actually happened to me a few hours ago!

How about you? Has there been a time when your Tolkien obsession caused you to misread or mishear something?


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## grendel (Aug 27, 2020)

Well it's not a misreading, but any time I have a "senior moment" (and they seem to come more often) I say in my best Ian McKellen voice: "I have no memory of this place."


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## frodolives7601 (Aug 27, 2020)

grendel said:


> Well it's not a misreading, but any time I have a "senior moment" (and they seem to come more often) I say in my best Ian McKellen voice: "I have no memory of this place."


That's hilarious. In a similar vein, sometimes when I'm looking for something at home and can't find it, I'll say, "Where is it? They _ssstole_ it from us!"--probably the only line I can properly do in Gollum's voice.


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## Halasían (Aug 27, 2020)

It was back when I was hiking in the Pacific Northwest and I came among some massive Douglas Fir and Cedar trees.
I swear I could hear them whispering to each other!


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Aug 28, 2020)

Another Sign Experience -- not a misreading, more an "of course" moment:

Passing through South Carolina in pitch darkness a couple of years ago, I saw a huge neon sign proclaiming "FIREWORKS" in angry red letters.

The W was out.


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## Ealdwyn (Aug 28, 2020)

I do a lot of hiking, and I'm always coming across places that have a distinctly Middle-Earth-ish feel to them. Shire-like rolling hills, old forests, misty mountains.
I present my very own Weathertop, complete with ruined castle on the summit, and Mount Doom:


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## Olorgando (Aug 28, 2020)

Well, it's easily been decades that when owners or managers have been found out to have been violating legal standards in a clear "greed is good" manner that I think "Saruman". A case boiled up recently in the meat-packing industry (and a couple of other foodstuffs-producers) as these violations led to rather serious Corona-hotspot outbreaks. And it's not that these deplorable situations were unknown beforehand, which leads me to the other category, the Wormtongues that appear to exist in some regulatory agencies.


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## Deleted member 12094 (Aug 28, 2020)

_You Know You've Been Spending Too Much Time in Middle-earth when..._

... you need a smart opening line, and all you can think of is:

​


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## frodolives7601 (Aug 28, 2020)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> Another Sign Experience -- not a misreading, more an "of course" moment:
> 
> Passing through South Carolina in pitch darkness a couple of years ago, I saw a huge neon sign proclaiming "FIREWORKS" in angry red letters.
> 
> The W was out.


That's a great one! Regarding missing lights (this is not a Tolkien story), I once went to a holiday-themed lighted boat parade. The owners of one boat had spelled out the word "NOEL" in lights across the stern of the boat, but many of the lights were out, so it just said "NO."


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## grendel (Aug 28, 2020)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> Another Sign Experience -- not a misreading, more an "of course" moment:
> 
> Passing through South Carolina in pitch darkness a couple of years ago, I saw a huge neon sign proclaiming "FIREWORKS" in angry red letters.
> 
> The W was out.


Had to read that twice, but then I got it. That's funny!


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## Faramir of Gondor (Sep 1, 2020)

Halasían said:


> It was back when I was hiking in the Pacific Northwest and I came among some massive Douglas Fir and Cedar trees.
> I swear I could hear them whispering to each other!


Merry...the trees are talking!


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## frodolives7601 (Sep 1, 2020)

Meriadoc Brandybuck said:


> Merry...the trees are talking!


Welcome, Meriadoc! You've just joined a great forum.


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## Faramir of Gondor (Sep 1, 2020)

frodolives7601 said:


> Welcome, Meriadoc! You've just joined a great forum.


why thank you!


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## Alcuin (Sep 2, 2020)

Not exactly the same, but… One of my friends with whom I played D&D in college, the fellow who played the cleric, said that some years ago he was sitting at a long stop light in Los Angeles when he decided he’d had enough and caught himself casting _Part Traffic_, stopping himself just before he stepped on the gas. 

There was a convenience store at a 3-way intersection in Peabody, Massachusetts, (at Lynnield, Lynn, and Washington Streets) called “Short Stop” that my kids and I always saw and misread as “Orc Stop”. Not intentionally: much to the amusement of my family, I always saw “*Orc* Stop”. The first few times I was startled until I got used to it. (Nowadays it’s a Richdale’s.)


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## frodolives7601 (Sep 2, 2020)

Alcuin said:


> Not exactly the same, but… One of my friends with whom I played D&D in college, the fellow who played the cleric, said that some years ago he was sitting at a long stop light in Los Angeles when he decided he’d had enough and caught himself casting _Part Traffic_, stopping himself just before he stepped on the gas.
> 
> There was a convenience store at a 3-way intersection in Peabody, Massachusetts, (at Lynnield, Lynn, and Washington Streets) called “Short Stop” that my kids and I always saw and misread as “Orc Stop”. Not intentionally: much to the amusement of my family, I always saw “*Orc* Stop”. The first few times I was startled until I got used to it. (Nowadays it’s a Richdale’s.)


I love it! I can just picture a bunch of Orcs running in and saying to the startled clerk, "Give us some coffee to go!"


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## Olorgando (Sep 2, 2020)

Sarumans, Wormtongues and Orcs seem to be hogging too much of the news recently; I'm undecided on Trolls (despite some participants in all sorts of sites having been given this moniker).


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Sep 2, 2020)

Another non-ME double-take, if I may. I thought I'd been spending too much time watching Star Trek, when I passed under this sign:


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