Friday Freak Show

Last Friday was a day many people have been looking forward to for some time--myself included. You see many of us dorks, especially those of us who have read books bigger than Myspace for Dummies, have been waiting for the last Harry Potter book to be read--well what for now will be the last Harry Potter book--my money is on a god awful septology prequal, with a whiny Voldebrat and Jar-Jar Wizard. Let's hope I'm wrong. Anyway, the book came out; lots of people pre-ordered books; and there were huge masses of people waiting to get their book--kinda like the iPhone launch but with costumes and people getting their money's worth.

While I do enjoy a good book every now and then, and I find the Harry Potter books to be worthwhile reading material (a one way ticket to hell would be reason enough), I mostly put aside my usual wild and crazy Friday nightlife aside for a week to freak watch at Borders, and I looked forward to it. I had some pre-work to do, as one needed to get their line position during the day, and when I showed up at 9:30am (they open at 9:00am) and saw a line of people who looked a little too much like they called the sidewalks there home, I was a tad bit scared. We (Liz was just as eager, but for reading every bit as much as people watchin--perhaps even more so) got place #116 in line, which altogether didn't sound bad. We planned on showing up around 11 to claim our place in line, gawk, and get out.

We got there around our planned arrival time, but to be honest I don't know when, and the parking lot was packed. Ugghhh! The store not surprisingly was packed too. It was loud, crowded, and there were more than a few annoying people. People can be annoying due to their loudness, their tone of voice, their sense of self importance, their smell, or sometimes for just being too ugly. We experiences all of those kinds of annoyances--sometimes in just one person! It wasn't all bad, as we got to see would be Quidditch players (complete with brooms), wannabe witches and wizards in their Hogwarts garb, wannabe Malfoys and other specific characters (including someone WAY too old to pull off Tonks), and lastly folks who thought their gear for the renaissance festival needed to be wore twice this year (what no theme weddings to go to?). beyond the annoying folks and those dressed up, we encountered people who obviously haven't left home in a while (I suppose when the last Harry Potter book came out), and they were overwhelmed by it all. Some of these folks were shaking (then again they could have been that pumped about Harry Potter). Anyway it all was good fun, but we were very happy to get the hell out of there.

Of course after all that fun there's nothing else to do but head home and start reading, which we did.