Finally Some Harry Potter Stories

I've finally gotten around to relaxing and recapping after the Harry Potter release party at the bookstore where I work. Harry-mania is starting to die down, but I still talk to a lot of people still reading and savoring the seventh book. I, on the other hand, devoured it in two afternoons. I like to rationalize by saying I was just trying to be nice to my wife so she could read it soon, but truthfully I just couldn't put it down. I will not, however, divulge any secrets on this blog for those few of you who may still be waiting breathlessly to read the final installment.

On to more amusing things. In the few days leading up to the Friday night release, a young man (probably freshman in high school) began bribing me to give him a new Harry Potter book before anyone else. He started on Wednesday with an offer of $20, and by Friday he was up to the cash plus a Treo phone and his dad's "extra" iPhone. On Wednesday we hadn't even gotten the books delivered yet but he was sure that they were in, and he offered me money just to let him look! Oh, and it wasn't his money, it was his dad's. On Friday afternoon he set up a tent outside the bookstore with some of his friends so it looked like they had camped out. This kid was crazy! I told his dad about all his antics because I know his dad as a regular customer at the coffee shop, and he didn't seem too amused.

I ended up working the few hours before the party started and then came back around 11 to help prep and set up everything for handing out the books. I didn't have to come back but I thought it might be kind of fun just to see how crazy it would be. My wife came back with me for a while just to check out the decorations (both in the shop and on the people), and we were not disappointed. We saw several Harrys of all ages, a few Rons, one Hermione who looked like a cross between Hermione and a creature from the pits of Hell, a merperson, Mad-Eye Moody, Professor Trelawney, and the giant lady from the French school in the fourth book. The funny thing about her was that she was unnaturally tall to begin with. An instance of a costume perfect for the person. There was also a quite good Snape who had hair so greasy looking I'm pretty sure it would never wash out.

The costumes were only the tip of the iceberg. When it came time to hand out the books, people immediately congealed into a giant blob of anxious nerds. Our system for handing out pre-ordered books was no match for the amount of people gathered in the shop so we resorted to just having people come up to a table, give us their names, and we would check them off. I was one of the luck strong men to carry boxes of books to the distribution table. I made a couple trips with one box of ten books on my shoulder and another box of ten books at my waist through a crowd of people so dense I actually had to push people aside, nearly creating a domino effect throughout the whole store. I finally ended up staying by the distribution table opening boxes of books to set out to give to the customers. It was better than shoving my way through 200 people.

When it was all said and done, it only took a half hour to hand out nearly 200 books. I left the store at 1 AM on Saturday, thinking that I had just experienced something quite amazing but that I never wanted to experience anything like it again.