five thousand shades of blue
Monday, June 23, 2003
I was forced to endure a purple polyester, lame-santa-bearded dumbledore
I didn't really want to go because I knew that we'd be out really late. But I also didn't want to send An out there by herself, so I reluctantly agreed.
She really, really wanted a copy of
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and we had not pre-ordered a copy. I was skeptical that we'd come away with anything at all, and really, I figured that we'd be turned away and I'd get to come home.
We were not turned away.
We arrived at about 8:20pm to find that the queue for the tickets to get the book was relatively short (numbers were due to be handed out starting at 9pm). There were a precious few high-numbered tickets there for people who hadn't pre-ordered. Ours was Slytherin 920. They started counting from 1.
We stood in the ticket line behind a really interesting looking girl. Albino — except that she had blue eyes. I suppose it's possible that she was wearing blue contacts, but she was also squinting to see things. Seemed unlikely that she'd be wearing lenses that weren't corrective.
The gaggle of teens at the very front of the line were so adorable. I could totally relate in the fandoms of my own teenage years.
The boy who got ticket number one was pink-cheeked and ecstatic.
There was a band playing there, a group of high schoolers calling themselves The Barrowites, which made Andra and I snicker tremendously. There were a lot of things for kids to do, crafts like making gold-glitter covered styrofoam balls (Golden Snitch) and pipe cleaners bent into round Harryesque glasses. There was a costume contest and the girl who won looked like she could have stepped out of the movie as an extra. (We shall not think again about the purple polyester, tacky white Santa-bearded Dumbledore.)
Mostly I was fairly bored and tired, and increasingly cranky as the night wore on. I tried sitting down and reading out of
another book I was going to buy, but I had to sit on the floor, and got stepped on half a dozen times.
When they wheeled the boxes of books out from the back to the registers, the oohs and ahhs would lead a person to believe the Queen herself was making a processional through the store. It was unbelievable. The book line began forming shortly after the books made their entrance. It was chaos, naturally. Unsurprisingly, an impatient doofus who probably rolled in at about 10:30pm or so kept causing a disturbance by complaining loudly to all who would listen that
By God, I Ordered My Book In January So Why Do I Have To Wait In This Line?! Word to the wise, dude: next time, order it online and have it delivered to you in the comfort of your own home, and away from other people, as you'd likely prefer.
The staff called out the ten- and then the five- minute warning. I hate to sound old and jaded but people were
way the hell too excited about it, really. I'm sure my attitude had a lot to do with the fact that I'd been up since 5:30 am, and it was getting closer and closer to midnight. (I refuse to count the hour nap after I'd got home from the café because of the duelling outside-dog-barking / indoor-bird-chirping. Bark
chirp! Bark
chirp! ARRRRRRRGH.)
I refused to participate in the last thirty second countdown, and actively hid my face from the TV cameras. (Don't get me wrong. I wasn't embarrassed to be there — I've been to
Star Trek conventions, for Pete's sake. I just
really wanted to be home. Sleeping.)
We had to wait a good long while before we could actually get into the line. The line on the other end of the store was into the final group (all tickets up to 1000) when my bank of registers was still 350 and under. Murphy's Law in action.
We got out of there at 1, of 1:15, or something. In any case it was Damned Late. My equilibrium was doing interesting things, I was thirsty and cranky as all get out.
An stayed up way too late Saturday reading the thing, and finished, so I have it now. I'm about a sixth of the way in, and am avoiding all of the news websites because I have no desire at all to know any of the secrets of the book.
And since I have too much respect for
Mary GrandPré to allow the dust jacket to get all torn up, I took it off. My copy is now wrapped all high-school-textbook-like in a plain piece of drawing paper, because I don't want the book itself getting all banged up, either.
is
this just not enough…?
