“Potterheads!” I thought to myself as I skulked into Wal-Mart at 12:30 AM to obtain some emergency supplies my wife wanted.
I noticed a pair of wives from my neighborhood. “Potterheads!” I shouted, and they laughed. We chatted for a few minutes about their addiction, and I explained that *I* was here for vital emergency supplies.
I quickly found what I was looking for. Late-night is when they restock the shelves, I rationalized, and that must be why my supplies were trundling down the aisle on a pallet. I grabbed two units, smiled politely to the woman dragging the very heavy pallet, and expressed my wishes that I’d made her life easier by lightening the load on the way to the shelves…
I stealthily crept up to the Wal-Mart checkout counter. A tall, broad woman with a flat nose, thick glasses, and a knowing grin staffed the cash register, rang me up, and commented on the thronging hordes throughout the store.
“Busy Night,” she remarked, “with the release of that book.”
I noticed the filling line of Potterheads in line behind me, each carrying a thick, heavy, blue addiction cradled lovingly in their arms. In my best Gollum voice, I loudly uttered “Potterheads! Potterheads everywhere! What kind of people are you, staying up in the middle of the night to feed your addiction? We all know what you are, yes, my Precious, you’re all FREAKS! What kind of loony would be in Wal-Mart at 12:30 AM just to buy a BOOK?”
I then grabbed my two precious copies of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”, tucked them under my arm to the gales of laughter from the large line behind me, smiled, and headed out to my car.
Life is good. Harry Potter book V is finally out. I finally rolled into bed at 3:30 AM, 220 pages later. Not to be too much fo a spoiler, but Harry is attacked in the first ten pages of the book. You see several of your favorite heroes return from previous volumes, and Harry is put on trial in the chair with the chains on it…
We must go back to the Precious, yes, we’ll see you later!
Update: I finished reading the book at around 6:30 PM today. Yeah, that’s nearly 900 pages in about 12 hours. I had a blinding headache all day today (maybe something to do with going to bed at 2:30 AM, but I don’t normally get headaches). The book really helped me keep the headache off my mind, so to speak. Spoiler and review coming soon!