The weirdest fund raising idea ever unless you’re really short

Fair warning: I am in the throes of writing a paper for my college class, but there’s just something so delicious about not doing what I’m supposed to. So I’ll share this instead.

My husband’s been telling me about this event he thinks a local nonprofit needs as a fundraiser. You’d think they would be fine going to somewhere like https://www.gofundme.com/c/blog/cost-of-raising-child for ideas, but he’s insistent.

He calls it The Middle Earth Strider Fun Run.

Now it doesn’t matter if you’re a Tolkien fan or not because I’m going to break down the gist of the conversation for you.

I said to him, “What in the fresh hell is that?”

“It’s a 4-day fun run for 135 miles.”

First of all, in my world, the words “fun” and “run” never belong in the same sentence. Like ever. It’s a little like saying “that’s a pretty swank colonoscopy bag you’re sporting.” It’s not. Add the “4-day” bit in there along with the mileage, and it’s basically an off the charts “no.”

I know I should never ask him for clarification, but I always do. Because I’m a sucker like that.

“So you have three people,” he says. “It’s gotta be a team of 3. And there’s a man, an elf, and a dwarf.”

Silence.

“The woman is the elf, the guy is the man, and the dwarf just has to be someone short. Like under 5 feet. Or five-foot-two, depending.”

I reminded him that plenty of people are under five feet, and they’re usually children.

“They can be under five-foot-two. But it can’t be children,” he says. “I thought maybe the dwarf could have a weight restriction, like they have to weigh at least 200 pounds.”

I just can’t.

“And these people run for 4 days straight?”

“No,” he counters, “because it would be like the Iditarod.”

“So you have obese, height-challenged people under 5 feet pulling sleds?”

“No. And under 5’2” or over 200 pounds. Though, I think with the over 200-pound thing, you might get giants instead of the dwarves, so forget the 200 lbs. We can just make height and age restrictions and they run legs.”

“But they’d be short legs, right?”

“That’s a good one!”

Silence.

“Plus there’d be shirts!” He enthused.

Postscript: I showed my husband this post, and he told me the image at the top is all wrong because “Strider, Gimli, and Legolas never went into Mordor. That’d be a Frodo and Samwise Fun Run, and for that you’d want children. But they have to have hairy toes.” So there’s that.