Richmond, as most of my regular readers will know, is a most perpetually embattled city.  Sometimes it’s the hilarious antics of our city council, sometimes it’s Spanky, Lord of the Mole People sending his minions out to local Waffle Houses, and sometimes it’s something altogether more epic and awesome.

            It all began this past week when Farmer Bob (name changed for humorous effect), owner and proprietor of the last boviary in Short Pump (home of the Mall of Innumerable Wonderments) decided to sell the farm.  And what did Henrico do with this recently freed up piece of real estate you ask?  Why zone it for the two tallest towers in Henrico County, of course.  Now, you no doubt are wondering by this point why I need to concern either myself or you with such petty matters as traffic planning, urban sprawl, and the NIMBY factor (which is of course short for Never, It’s My Bubble Yak!).  The answer of course is that there is far more going on here than meets the eye.  Why, for instance, did Henrico decide to allow this all of a sudden in an already developed region?  And why two towers, instead of just one big one or possibly a hotel tastefully shaped like an elephant?  The answer lies in the results of the most recent Henrico political goings on, in which one Grima Wormtongue was appointed in an advisory capacity to the Board of Supervisors.  Clearly he has corrupted the Board, whose true charge is to protect Henrico, by convincing them to cave in to the evil machinations of his true master, Saruman.

            Yes, it is in fact the case that this is no commercial development at all, but rather a brutal power grab by the White Wizard and Sauron the Dark Lord to rear up two towers to replace the ones back in Middle Earth that got all busted up back in the day.  Indeed, it has long been known to me that the Richmond Metro Area is at a great interdimensional nexus which eases travel between the various planes and realms of reality, but never had I imagined that this particular evil would visit itself upon us.  As if any more evidence was needed, I ask only that you behold this, the latest concept drawing of what this new “commercial development” is to look like:

            Yes, clearly there can be no doubt, especially since a recently stolen developers’ proposal lists that it will have, among other things, a food court, a palantir kiosk, a Macy’s Department Store, a vast pit for breeding orcs with goblin men to create a master race of Uruk-Hai, a Denny’s, an Abercrombie & Fitch, Dress Barn Woman, Mount Doom, and a Cheesecake Factory.  Yes, a Cheesecake Factory!  When there’s already one just like, a block down the road!  Obviously a grave new evil stalks the streets of the West End.

            Even down here in the Shire (known as Chesterfield County in the language of the big folk) trouble has began to stir as the vile schemes of these invaders begin to clash with those of local elements.  This very afternoon, in fact, an acid spill here on Southside was occasioned when an advance party of orc sappers encountered one of the many armies of Spanky.  Even now a vast subterranean battle may be raging beneath all the city as the Mole People strike back at this new rival faction.

            What then are we to do?  Clearly we cannot sit idle and wait for Gondor to deliver us, since they’re all a bunch of tools anyway.  And although we may now have a common foe, I cannot believe that we ought ally ourselves with the Mole People, who, after all, would probably just build a Hardee’s or some other such den of iniquity on the land if they win.  And with our local forces still fighting that Balrog that Virginia Power unearthed last summer, our list of allies grows thin.

            I propose therefore that our only hope is to gather up a wacky band of misfits and make the journey out to the West End, where with luck we shall evade the spies of the Enemy and be able to hurl this Cheesecake Factory into the very fires of Mount Doom from whence it came, thereby saving all of Richmond, or at least giving us a reason to go hang out by a totally awesome volcano.  And if that doesn’t work, well, we always could just go through the Mines of Moria.