"He's faster than Severus Snape running from shampoo!"

I didn't get to attend any awesome Potter parties last night, so I did the next best thing. I accompanied my boss Mary, her daughter and daughter's friend to the late showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Yes, I've seen it already, but it was a night of magical Potter goodness!


There was one guy two rows ahead of us with a Still-Living-In-Mom's-Basement-And-Never-Kissed-A-Girl-type beard. He laughed a lot at weird parts, with a braying hee-haw type of laughter that sent the rest of the audience into muffled giggles and snorts.


After the movie, we continued our Potter-mania by driving to Wal-Mart to wait mere moments for when the final book, Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows, became available. (Look, I know Wal-Mart is evil. If there was a regular bookstore closer than an hour away, I would have gone there instead.) The line began at Layaway and extended past Electronics, One-Hour Photo, Fabrics and Crafts. My job was to make everyone laugh while we waited. Though I was specifically talking to Mary, a girl right in front of me kept turning around and laughing. It was late; I don't recall all of my jokester ways. Though I do recall loudly proclaiming, "All right, now everyone get ready to kick anyone who walks by and reveals the ending!" They all laugh. Then, pretending an ending-spoiler had fallen to the ground, I go, "Oops, you tripped." Girl in front of me was cracking up. Really. It was funny. Trust me.


Anyway, we got to the head of the line rather quickly since they were prepared for the crowd. I was handed a book and 3 colored bracelets: green for Slytherin, blue for Ravenclaw, and yellow for Hufflepuff. They'd run out of the Gryffindor. :( There was also juice and a Harry Potter cake, but since it was after midnight and I needed to get up early for work, I passed on those.


The worst part, then, was waiting in line to pay. While they had moved us along so efficiently back in layaway, they only had 2 checkout lanes open. And since I'd stopped to talk to someone I knew, I was separated from Mary and consequently had to wait in line behind two particular library patrons who are very annoying. It took probably 5 minutes total to wait in line to get a book, and another 30 or so just to pay for it. I did get to talk to one cute guy, though. He walked up to me and goes, "They ran out of copies??" Me: Huh? He points at my book. "Is it true that they ran out of copies?" Me: I have no idea. (I'm at the top of my conversational game when talking to cute guys, as you can clearly see.) "Well, where did you get the book?" Me: Back in Layaway. Then he walked away. Top of my game, people. Top of my game. Anyway, there were like 50 people in line, and he came up to me in a panic. Not the annoying patrons in front of me. Not the loud woman behind me. Not the geek playing golf on his cell phone. ME. Take that, Wal-Mart customers!







I was extremely tired by the time I got home, HP in my hot little hands. Cripes, I must still be delirious from lack of sleep to post this fromping ugly picture. I look drunk.





The colors of Hogwarts, minus Gryffindor. I always imagined I'd be a Gryffindor myself, if I were a magic-learning student, but Mary reminded me that Hufflepuff's animal is the badger, and I do live in the Badger State.

Now, I am not the type of girl who likes to ruin surprises, so you won't find any spoilers here. But since I work in a public library, where we just happened to receive our copies in advance in order to process, I did get a head start on reading the book. In fact, I only have about 30 pages left. And this book is an emotional rollercoaster, for sure. I was right and wrong about some of my guesses/theories. But make sure to have tissues at the ready for this reading. Gather all your snacks and drinks, banish everyone else from your house, and treat yourself to one final adventure with Harry Potter.