Last night my soon-to-be sister-in-law and I picked Mel up after work to take her to Media Play. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was being released at midnight and Mel had reserved it months ago. Media Play was mobbed by the time we got there, apparently there had even been a release party earlier that evening. By the time the book selling actually started at 12:01 a.m. the lines for the cashier stations snaked through merchandise aisles almost to the rear of the store.
At a first printing of more than eight million copies in the US alone, there is serious money being made on this book. I’d read an article in Time this week about its release. A side-bar article talked about J.K. Rowling’s wealth; going from being a welfare mother to being richer than the Queen of England by fifty million, or was that billion(?), dollars. Mel says, “Good for her, she earned it. What did the Queen ever do?”
I shopped the bargain DVDs and bought a few (Reefer Madness – I’ve never seen it!- and Quills), then joined Mel and SIL in line. After standing there a bit, Mel instructed me to go get some doughnuts. We had been discussing getting Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the way to get the book. SIL had never tried them and Mel was going fishing with a friend in the morning and thought it would be good to have some. So, SIL and I left to go down the street for doughnuts.
We went through the drive-thru and bought a dozen. The drive-thru exits around the back of the store and as we drove around the back we noticed a crate full of boxed doughnuts, probably ten dozen packed in dozen-sized window boxes. Doughnuts had been left outside. We parked for a moment and discussed the unattended doughnuts.
They wouldn’t have been left outside if they weren’t garbage, right? They look perfectly fine though, so maybe they’re not garbage. But if not, were they forgotten? Had someone been loading them for distribution (a local convenience chain recently started carrying them) and left them? How long ago? Could they be stale now, having become garbage?
Finally, our curiousity and the lure of abandoned doughnuts got the better of us. I backed up, hopped out of the car and grabbed a box from the crate. As I drove off, SIL poked her finger in one of the glazed doughnuts and pronounced them fresh. Whee! We just stole a dozen doughnuts… or as SIL put it, “We got a two-fer.” (As in, two-for-one.)
We got back to Media Play and waited in line with Mel for a few more minutes, entertaining her with our doughnut caper, before she finally got her copy of the book.
This is what nearly-40 year old women do for entertainment on a Friday night: Buy childrens books and steal doughnuts. Silly, huh?
I stumbled in to the fest at Barnes and Noble. The smell of chocolate chip cookies infested my nostrils and the staff were dressed up as witches and top-hatted wizards.<br><br>I haven’t read a single one of the Harry Potter books. (For that matter, I still haven’t seen Rocky Horror Picture Show, either.)
My first exposure to Harry Potter was three and a half years ago, when I went up to visit my preemie niece, still in the NICU. My sister, Carey, was with her for hours every day, and had been advised to try reading to her. So, she and my brother-in-law read to little Uhuru from a Harry Potter book.<br><br>The Barnes and Noble fest was a mob scene, children in large glasses with wands, staff in witch costumes, etc. So, we stayed away from the Harry Potter central part of the store, and instead I browsed through: Kosher Adultery, by Shmuley Boteach (disturbing story somewhere near the beginning about a man reviving his sexual interest in his wife by being convinced that she really would cheat on him – ugh), a kind of New Agey book which argued that the gospels give coded indications that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene (and that if we all believed in this, rather than the celibate son of a virgin mother, Christianity would be less messed up about sex), and an account in another book about Dorothy Day’s abortion.<br><br>Left with Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation, a sex column book in which Dr. Tatiana advises letter writers of all different species on their sex problems. Even funnier than Savage Love.
Sounds like just as much fun as our Friday night — I bought a Neil Diamond CD at Borders and we drove around town, blasting "Sweet Caroline" and singing at the top of our lungs.<br><br>Whether it’s Neil or stealing donuts, those of us nearing 40 have reinterpreted having a good time.
not standing on line at costco on saturday morning, i got Harry for 15.95…sounds like you had more fun than i did though…
Amazon delivered my copy of HP5 to my door at noon on Saturday.<br>No crowds, no shoving …and no donuts.<br>What I don’t get is why you only swiped one box. Is that called demi pilfering?<br>Donuts. How I miss those days.
As it was, we barely ate what we bought much less what we swiped. There is a limit to how many doughnuts one can eat in a weekend. Someone suggested we should have swiped the entire crate and taken them back to Media Play to hand out to the folks in line.
doughnuts…yum.<br><br>I haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books. I have seen both movies… however I know from experience that the books always far outshine the movies made from them. And in all truth, I thought the HP movies were great!<br><br>Now I have five books to catch up on.
Krispy Kreme. Mmmmm…doughnuts. I can feel that I will now be lurking in the shadows behind the Krispy Kreme by our house looking for forgotten boxes of doughnuts. I have almost made Punkin wreck the car numerous times by screeching "HOT DOUGHNUTS NOW!! GO BACK GO BACK!" That red neon sign does me in every time.<br><br>Love Harry Potter! Kid #12 finished reading it whilst she was "cleaning her room." Punkin is reading it now and I’m sure will be done soon. I’m on page 260 or so. Kid #10 will read it later. She has become obsessed with reading books about animals.