This one also has Frodo in it, but I still thought it would work well here. It takes place in the Crickhollow house a while after the quest.  Hope you enjoy it.  -  G.W.

                                       Important Choices

"Which one do you think?" Merry asked, holding open the doors.

Pippin and Frodo stared in stunned silence at the vast array of waistcoats. There were solid colors, plaids, stripes, several with braiding or edging as trim, long ones without buttons, short ones with buttons, a few with tiny flowers on them, some with gold stitching, and some with ponies on them. They were all folded neatly and arranged by color.

"Well?" Merry asked again and turned to frown at his dumb-struck cousins. "I need to know which one you think that I should wear. This is very important to me. It isn't every day that I ask a lass to marry me. I want to look my best."

"Which one is your favorite?" Frodo asked, as Pippin moved around Merry and began poking around in the wardrobe.  "Don't ruin the organization, Pip," Merry said and then turned to Frodo. "I don't suppose that I have a favorite. I like some of them better than others but I couldn't select a favorite."

Frodo frowned. "Do you think Estella has a favorite?"

Merry scratched his head and gave this question some thought. "If she does she's never said." He could hear Pippin moving about behind him and he turned and grabbed his younger cousin by the collar, pulling him back from the collection of finery. "I know where all of those are and I don't want you mixing them up."

"You do?" Pippin asked, wide-eyed.

"I do what?" Merry asked.

"Know where all of them are?" Pippin asked, amused. "I mean, do you really?"

"Yes, I do," Merry said, frowning at him. "I don't leave my clothing scattered about the floor in small piles like someone I could name. I don't select my clothing by picking it up off of the floor and checking for stains or rummaging about in the bottom of my drawers for something that fits. I have my things organized.  I don't go about smelling my things to see if I have worn them recently."

Pippin smirked. "Merry, you are becoming a fussy old hobbit. Estella had better say yes or you are likely to wind up spending the rest of your days folding and stacking waistcoats. They are all much the same, just different colors."

"Fine, if you don't have an opinion, then Frodo can help me decide," Merry said, sternly. "You don't have any idea about what proper hobbits should wear anyway. I just asked you to include you. It's Frodo's opinion that I really want." Merry looked at Frodo and ignored Pippin's attempt to look insulted. "Well, Frodo, what do you think?"

Frodo looked into the wardrobe and wondered if it were possible to become dizzy from looking at so many brightly colored items so closely. It seemed that his head was spinning. "The red one," he said in desperation and Pippin snorted.

Merry gave Pippin a quick glare and then asked Frodo, "Which red one?"

"What?" Frodo asked, thunder-struck.

"Which of the red ones? There are several," Merry said, gesturing behind him to a stack of red waistcoats in various shades.

Frodo swallowed. "The top one?"

Merry turned and took the red waistcoat from the top of the neat pile and held it up. "This one?"

"Well, I did think so, but now that you have it out, it seems a bit too decorated with all of that gold trim," Frodo admitted. He couldn't let Merry ask Estella to be his bride in that one. It was quite dreadful.

"I rather like the trim," Merry said, examining the waistcoat closer and smiling.

"Most of them look far better in the wardrobe than they do on Merry," Pippin said, grinning. "That one looks a bit like Yule tinsel."

"Ignore him, Frodo," Merry said in a slightly threatening tone. "All you have to do is look at what he's wearing to know that he has no sense of style." Merry looked Pippin up and down critically and wrinkled his nose as it he were smelling something foul.

Pippin looked down at his rather ratty brown trousers and slightly wrinkled shirt which was hanging out over his trousers on one side and tucked in on the other. His braces were missing at the moment and he suspected that he'd forgotten to put them on this morning. "I don't have to dress up to stand in your room and watch you make an idiot of yourself. I consider that an every day occurrence and these are my every day clothes," Pippin said, smiling.

Merry stepped toward Pippin and then stopped. "I will not let you upset me. This is a very important day. I am asking Estella Bolger to marry me or don't you remember?" He looked daggers at Pippin for a brief second and then turned to Frodo. "So not this red one, then?"

"A blue one maybe," Frodo said, amending his choice.

"Which one?" Merry asked and returned the red one to its place in the red stack. He moved over to the blue ones and waited for Frodo's decision.

"You are both hopeless," Pippin groaned and then proceeded to walk over to the wardrobe and select a light grey waistcoat with a hint of red trim near the top and silver buttons lining its front.

Merry started to object, but Frodo put his hand on Merry's arm and said, "Wait, let's hear this."

"You have on black trousers so as to look formal and your best linen shirt with the pearl buttons. I am assuming that you are planning to wear your long black coat and so this waistcoat is the one," Pippin said, holding it up in front of Merry. "It has the light grey with ever such a slight trace of black running through it in tiny lines and a touch of red trim to keep you from looking like a mourner at a burial. It also brings out the color in your eyes."

Frodo grinned as Pippin forced the garment into Merry’s hands. "How did you do that?" Frodo asked, both puzzled and amused.

"You two keep forgetting that I was raised in a house full of lasses," Pippin said. "What do you suppose lasses talk about every minute of every day if not frocks and colors and their hair and what color will make a hobbit's eyes look best?" He folded his arms over his chest and rocked on his heels. "I dress like this because it is comfortable, not because I don't know any better. Now, put on the waistcoat, straighten your hair, don your black coat and go give Miss Estella Bolger a chance that most hobbit lasses in this Shire would love to have; the chance to marry the only male hobbit in all of Middle Earth who folds his clothing." With that, Pippin left his older cousins standing in stunned silence.

Just as Merry and Frodo began to recover their wits, Pippin's voice rang out from the next room, "She'll say yes if she has any taste at all. Not only will you be the best dressed hobbit in the Shire, but you are also the second best looking."

Merry grinned at Frodo and slipped on the waistcoat.

The End

G.W.     02/15/2005