"Harry Potter" Extravaganza!! (NO SPOILERS!)

So, since I'm a huge geek, I went to one of the midnight parties for the Harry Potter book release last night. WE HAD A BLAST. My mom and I have attended the midnight parties for since the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I preordered three copies MONTHS ago; one for me, one for Mom and one for Andie, who was driving out to join us. (Mom and I discovered with GoF that if we don't each get our own copies of the book, we'll fight over it. It wasn't pretty.) So, I called the local Barnes & Noble, to see what their procedure was going to be, something I learned a bitter lesson about with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Mom and I didn't get our tickets early and ended up with like, #789 and were there until almost 2 am. That did lead to some hilarious slap-happiness on our part, but it's not something I wanted to repeat. The nice, but harried, employee from B&N told me that they were giving out bracelets starting at 6pm. Ok, so I headed over there after work where I proceeded to stand in line for my bracelet. FOR OVER TWO HOURS. Yeah, you heard me.

Ok, where was I? Oh yeah, standing in a line for two hours. But it was kind of awesome. I made lots of temporary friends, with whom I discussed the new book, the latest Harry Potter movie other books and local school gossip. It was fun. The little kids were all in costume and had lightning-shaped marks on their foreheads. The teenagers had funny HP tshirts. My favorite? One that said, "SAVE GINNY!" Heh. Indeed. Awesome things that happened: a group of kids drove past in a car with "HARRY DIES!" written all over it, another group of kids drove by and yelled, "Oh my GOD! They killed Dumbledore!" (To which a child standing in line replied snottily, "DUH. That was the LAST book!" Heh.) and yet another group of kids drove by and called us all nerds. I'd be offended, except, yeah. We are. The funniest thing was a very confused gentleman who walked past the incredibly long queue and had the following exchange with a HP fan:

Confused Gentleman: Um. What are you guys all...doing?
HP Fan: The new Harry Potter book is coming out!
Confused Gentleman: Oh! So, you're waiting to get the new book?
HP Fan: Um...not exactly. Right now we're waiting in line to get bracelets to get the book. It doesn't actually come out until midnight.
Confused Gentleman: Oh. Really? That's like, 6 hours from now. You're gonna stand in line at the Barnes & Noble until midnight? For a book? [Note, he wasn't rude. He was just baffled.]
HP Fan: Yes.
Confused Gentleman: Huh. [Shakes head. Walks away.]
Lady Standing Next to Me, Upon Hear This Exchange: Well, when you put it that way, it just sounds ridiculous!
Me: Heheheheh!

So, I got my bracelet, with a pretty good number and headed home to put on my "Reading is Sexy" shirt (because it IS!) and picked up Mom. We went out to dinner and Andie met us. Our waitress was hilarious and as Harry Potter-obsessed as we were. After dinner, we headed to the store by about 10:45 where we were told that WE COULDN'T GO IN BECAUSE THE STORE WAS AT CAPACITY AND THEY DIDN'T WANT TO VIOLATE FIRE CODES. DUDE!! Our Barnes & Noble is HUGE! That's a lot of freakin' Harry Potter fans! So, we parked outside and peeked in the windows. Possibly, we made fun of people. We recapped the last book for Andie who hadn't had a chance to reread it. We watched two little kids dressed as Hogwarts students have a wizard's duel. We gossiped. We argued over whether some little girl was dressed as Luna Lovegood or a house elf. It remained...unclear. Then it was time to line up!

There was the usual countdown to midnight. The first person to buy the book walked out holding it up triumphantly and we all cheered. We were in and out with our books by 12:30! I couldn't believe it. I can't believe it's all over! No more Harry Potter books!

P.S. I stayed up until 4am, reading the thing. I had to stop when words stopped making sense. "Owl. What's an owl? Is that a color or something? Yeah, time for bed." Then I got up today and finished it! WHOOT! Now, everyone else, finish so we can talk about it!! (It was awesome! That's all I'll say.)