Fortunately it was slippery from all the blood, and he dropped it, letting it roll down the hallway in the dark.

Unfortunately . . .
 

. . . Sauron found it, and used the increase in the value of gold to effect a hostile takeover of Middle-earth. Manwe resigned as CEO of Arda, Ltd. and the world was plunged in a second (third? fourth? does anyone really care anymore?) darkness.

EVIL WINS!

Fortunately, Sauron had a heart attack and all the Orcs and other servants of Sauron decided that they didn't want to be involved in a reign of terror and we all lived happily!

GOOD WINS!

Unfortunately, people were so tired of this Dark, Light, Dark, Light thing they all just closed their eyes and decided to ignore anything which bothered them.

APATHY WINS!

Fortunately, they were all too busy with Pip to care about the ring. Besides, it was probably the Four Ring rather than the One ring as I think it has been destroyed three times already

Fortunately Eru declared a timeout for
everyone because it had gotten just
[Utoo][/U] gross and icky, and started
Middle-earth over again at the First Age.

Sane Justice Wins!

Unfortunately, Sane Justice had been killed by Sauron in a boxing match.

Fortunately, no one had ever paid too much attention to him anyway.

Unfortunately, poor Mr. Sane Justice (in life) had had to compete with MovieLegolas for attention. This is why he was never remembered.

Fortunately Tom Bombadil drove MovieLegolas
to desert Middle-earth for Troy by incessant
rhyming talk (can't really blame Leggy too
much :D ) and TB then saved Sane Justice
after SJ sung a song he learned from some
hobbits.

Unfortunately, SJ didn't have the patience to hang out with Tom Bombadil for very long, and wandered away into the wilds of Middle-Earth (chock-full of places he'd never been).

Fortunately Tom Bombadil found Ring Four
before Sauron could and placed it on the
mantleplace of his house, where he forgot about it.

Unfortunately, Goldberry thought it was pretty and put it on.

Fortunately, it didn't fit.

Unfortunately, when it fell off her finger it rolled out the door and down the road and ended up just outside the Barrow-Downs.

Fortunately Gildor was passing by and took the ring,
thinking it might help Gandalf escape from Orthanc.

Unfortunately Gandalf appeared behind him just as he picked up the Ring, and in his surprise Gildor let it keep rolling right into the Downs.

Fortunately, they met some helpful Downers and all had tea and biscuits and talked of many things. Of elves and dwarves and magic rings, and even if Balrogs may have wings.

Unfortunately while they were having this brillig
conversation a snark gave the ring to a wight.

Fortunately the wight was far too busy being suspicious of innocent villagers to realize what the snark had put in his pocket.

Unfortunately the wight's next door
neighbor had the "wight stuff",
and realized he had Ring Four so he
put it on.

Fortunately, the Ring's internal workings were overloaded by the rampant punniness and melted together, making it no more than any other ring.

Fortunately, Ring Four is just a fake; Ring One is the only one that works. And (horror of horrors) the Jabberwock had somehow got possession of said Ring One.

Unfortunately, the One Ring was destroyed a while back in this thread.... as a matter of fact, the only thing that kept the world going was that they all BELIEVED that the One Ring was still around. As this lie was uncovered, they all quickly agreed to think that the Five Ring was actually the One Ring, even though by the time he made it, Sauron was already sick or ring-making and it was actually The One (or rather Five) Necklace.

Fortunately, Sauron was able to subcontract the
making of Ring Five to the heretofore unknown
Petty Dwarf illigitimate descendents of Mim,
who were still ticked off about the treatment
of their ancestors by Men and Elves
in the First Age.

Unfortunately, that was all Sauron was able to do, because once he subcontracted the ring, decendants of the Men and Elves of the First Age took part in an angry riot at Mordor.

Fortunately, the Petty-Dwarves had mastered the art of bureaucracy and told Sauron they would get him a delivery estimate as soon as they delivered and received back, (signed, in triplicate, in blood) a cost estimate and evil dominion and enslavement waiver.

Unfortunately, Sauron wasn't a newbie to bureaucracy. Accompanying the natural charm of his to open the doors, he had a party of smart-dressed lawyers ready at hand.

Fortunately, they were all SpM in disguise. :p

Unfortunately, all the clanging and banging gave them away.

Fortunately (for everyone but SpM) Sauron decided to start a new kind of music by banging on the poor BDer

Unfortunately, Sauron quickly proved himself tone-deaf.

Fortunately, loyalty among the BDers for one of their star football players encouraged a massive onslaught, in which many rose to great glory. Of they couldn't be killed, as they were already dead, and so victory was easily obtained.

Unfortunately, Sauce had a terrible ringing in his ears from the Steel-drum session.

Fortunately, he had lost his ears in the great battle of the Wights.

Unfortunately SpM regenearted his ears, as he was no longer bound by laws of biology (being undead and all)

Fortunately the various impacts had not affected his ears, thus the ringing was no longer an issue.

Unfortunately he was so confused on the issue of whether or not he had ears that he shone up a helm mirror-bright and no one could get anything useful out of him but "I have too got ears!"

Fortunately, during all this confusion, a small hedgehog ran off with the Ring.

Unfortunately, it was Sonic the hedgehog who decided it'd be "fun" to run it all the way to the unexplored corners of Mordor