t began with the forging of the Dork-mart Credit Cards.

Three were given to the Elfises, musical, good-looking…flashiest of all beings. Five were given to the Dweeb Lords, great programmers and porn surfers in their parents’ basements. And four were bestowed upon the race of guys, who above all others, love to buy stuff.

But they were all suckers.

In the land of Lardor, in the stuffy offices of Bank Boom, the Dark Executive of Dork-mart, Lord Mauron, forged a Master Card…er, a Master Ring, to control all others. Circular credit. Endless in its power.

Store by store the inhabitants of Muddle-Earth fell under the spell of “members only” offers and Sunday paper supplements. Soon Dork-mart saturated its market and an army of guys and Elfises boycotted the cooperation and marched on Lardor to destroy the ring and close Mauron’s account.

After Mauron’s defeat, the ring disappeared into the murky depths, namely the Muddle-Earth sewer system where it came to plumber Scrottum, who took it deep into Crisco Mountains. For 500 years he was on every mailing list and it poisoned his credit. He kept it with him always until one fateful day when he left home without it.

Then the ring saw its chance and hopped a cab to 42nd street, where it bought a bus ticket and road 630 miles to the Detroit International Airport where Lardor Flight 4278 was delayed. While sipping a margarita in the airport lounge it struck up a conversation with a sexy young woman in a short skirt and ended up spending the night in a nearby flophouse after which it awoke the next morning stinking drunk in a restroom urinal in a gas station on the outskirts of Throbbiton.

Thus it came into the possession of one of the most worthless creatures imaginable. A drunken throbbit by the name of Bobo Buggins who, upon finding it, stuck it down his trousers next to his ‘precious.’

And so the fate of Muddle-Earth came to rest in the crotch of a twit.