Saturday, July 21, 2007

The Seriousness of My Book Addiction

Once I learned that Amazon wasn't going to deliver my Deathly Hallows book until Monday, I knew I had to buy one off the shelf at midnight. There was no way I would fight the crowd at WalMart, so I decided to buy the book at CVS, because at my age I practically live at the pharmacy anyway. The handful of coupons I had from CVS would have meant Deathly Hallows for about six bucks, in fact.

I got to the pharmacy at around 11:20, wrote a check for a million dollars for legitimate drugs, and sat down to wait for 12:01, the magic hour when all things shall become known. The store was deserted except for me and my friend Cathy, whom I hadn't seen for a long time and with whom I offered to share my coupons. We sat there together on the Old People chairs in the prescription section and chatted about our kids and how cool we were not to be at WalMart waiting in a long line.

At 11:45, a very embarrassed clerk came up to us and confessed that CVS had been selling the books ALL DAY and they were gone. We'd been waiting for naught.

I was upset, sure, but not as upset as the CVS manager was going to be when Scholastic found out what the store had done.

Cathy and I looked at each other and sighed. What other book-selling business in this town was open at this hour, besides WalMart? It's not as if we had a real bookstore anywhere close by, more's the pity.

The grocery store.

So we met at Fudz Plus where there was a large table heaped high with Deathly Hallows, covered and sealed tightly with transparent plastic. The mound of books was guarded by a very nice clerk who was counting down and reporting every two or three minutes, and at the stroke of 12:01 she tore off the plastic and stepped back. Most people were at WalMart being trampled, so the dozen or so of us at the grocery store made our purchases within two or three minutes, grabbed some bread and a sack of potatoes, and went home. I set up shop at the kitchen table (I do not read on cushions; I prefer a straight wooden chair. Yes, I know I'm a freak. ) with popcorn, leftover potato salad, about eight cans of Diet Coke, informed the universe that I was not to be disturbed, and began. I did not stop reading until I finished.

Later today we'll be driving about two hundred miles north, where we'll meet Hub's family for dinner (it's the half-way point for all of us) and where I'll hand the book over to my three beautiful occasionally-borrowed Michigan children who are champing at the bit* to get their hands on a copy.

We take our Harry Potter very seriously. Very seriously indeed.

*Yes, it's "champing at the bit," NOT "chomping at the bit." I take my idioms very seriously, too.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly