About 11:15 BP and I made the trek out to get Harry Potter. The Little Puddin was supposed to go with us but was too tired, but wanted us to bring him back chicken nuggets and a small Frosty from Wendy’s later. Sheesh.
We were going to Meijer’s (a Midwest type of WalMart, blu) but BP said “Let’s go to WalMart and get it.” I hate WalMart. I feel the same way about that store as Allie does (read her comment in the Sparky post about “phone machines.”)
Anyway we got there and there was a long line down the middle of the store. WalMart had a shitty set-up (but what else is new): They had people go to the head of the line and ask the woman for a bracelet. Those with bracelets could buy the book. She gave us both a red “Gryffindor” ala the Lance Armstrong LIVE bracelets. She eyed us suspiciously and snipped, “The bracelets are only for people buying books .” I told her, “We’re buying two books.” She begrudgingly handed over two bracelets and looked at us as if we were lying. She also gave us promo HP posters, promo bookmarks and flyers.
We moved away and I wanted to go stand in line, but BP said, “I hate lines (well who doesn’t?) After the Air Force I promised myself I wouldn’t stand in another long line.”
Me: “But it’s Harry!”
He wanted to look at electronics so we went to the other ended of the store and looked at electronics.
About 5 ‘til 12 I said, “Let’s go stand in line!” We went over to the line and it had grown three times longer. We were now standing near the cash registers 25 -28. Over the loud speaker, a voice came on, “Here’s how we’ll do this. People with bracelets. Starting at the bracelet table I will take three groups of ten over to registers 25, 26 and 29. You will wait in line and the cashier will ring up your book!”
Then we saw three huge skids come rolling down another aisle on way to the registers. I swear I couldn’t help myself. When a skid came rolling by I shouted, “GRYFFINDOR LIVES!!!!!” This bitch two people in front of us, turned around and glared at me. AT ME! Can you imagine? This was supposed to be a Happy Event.
Then I got a scathingly brilliant idea.
Me: Don, the registers are right there. (By this time the groups of ten had been escorted.) The people have no other identification except the same bracelets WE have. Let’s just nonchalantly get out of line and go over in a register line. We won’t have to wait more than a few minutes!
BP: (looks around) Nah.
Me: Come on. Or else we’ll be here until 2 am!
BP: Nah. Let’s just wait. The line looks like it’s moving fast.
Me: (disgusted) What’s the worst that can happen? An eighty year old Greeter comes over and kicks our assses out? If that happens you throw him to the floor and I’ll kick him in the nuts.
BP: Puddin! No! Let’s just wait in line like good lil soldiers.
Me: Damn, Don. You told me such stories about your wild escapades when you were younger and now you’re all conventional and afraid of a WalMart Greeter.
BP: (laughs) I didn’t realize you were such a rebel.
Me: God, we’re such old farts.
Well, we waited in line and it did move fairly fast. At the winding ‘round part of the line, a kept seeing a huge bearded young man wearing a red shirt with a picture of the Buddha on it. The writing said, “RUB MY TUMMY FOR LUCK.” I really considered doing it.
Long story short. We bought two regular books and the special big dollar illustrated book set in a box. We got out of there about 10 til 1, and Wendy’s was closed, so LP had to settle for two plain cheeseburgers, fries and a Sprite. I was in bed at two, and I’m up now because I promised a friend I’d go to Panera Bread and to garage sales with her this morning. Why did I do that?
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24 comments:
Emma, you ARE such a pot-stirrer! :)
Have fun reading. Our copy is coming in the mail today. I feel slight guilt over not buying it at the local independent, but I'm busy. We may crack the cover of the book tonight and read an hour or so. But the rest will have to wait until I get back next week.
I saw that Indiana printer on the news. They hit the proverbial jackpot. Yay them.
See you later and have a good week.
emma,
thanks for the laugh. i don't blame you for wanting to skip the line and i hope poor BP isn't becoming conservative in his old age.
jilly
Somehow, I found your little outing adorable.
i went grocery shopping today and they had a pile of the new books at the pick'n'save. and there were still some left. very strange.
I bought two copies of the book. One for me, one for Spawn. Spawn gave his to Hussy and took mine. grrrrrr Good thing I downloaded it from The Pirates Bay.
Great Caesar's Ghost, Ems, don't you know that you can get in trouble for not following all the Rules?
Obedient,
R
I bought two copies of HP from our local Walmart, known as Asda.
I did this because they were selling for only £5 and erm.....because.....I am a Walmart Greeter.
Don't hate me. It's not a lifelong career or anything. But I needed something to fit round Lizzys nursery. And you know something, I can't fault them for their colleague values. They are great to work for.
FIVE FUCKING POUNDS??? That's like $9. Our retail price is $34.99. MOst retialers discounted it at least 20$ but still! INcluding the "special" book with the detailed illustrations, I spent almost $100 on Harry Potter shit.
What's Harry's retail price over there?
NOte to self: Do not hate Clanky :)
That's 20% . . . not 20 dollars
I simply do not understand the need to have the book at 12:01 am. I was quite content that it arrived by 4 pm.
Clank, I have a boatload of students who work at Walmart. Apparently, Walmart has no problem working around people's schedules.
Rosa,
No one "needed" to have the HP book at midnight. No one "needs" to line up to order to be the first people to see a new Star Wars movie. No one "needs" to sleep overnight outside to get tickets to Springsteen, or The Rolling Stones or whoever. But they WANT to. It's an event. They loved the books so they WANT to be among the first to read it . . .or in Rag's case to devour it so as to spoil others' reading pleasures.
I have it but somehow sex keeps getting in the way of me actually readin it
damn it, now i want to know what was deleted here too. between emma and resp, my nosey radar is going nuts
jilly
Dear Emma.
The retail price is £17.99 which is $37.02. Although nobody sold it for this that I could see. Asda (Walmart) were doing a house chosing game thing, free, for kids where they got to put a sorting hat on and it chose a house for you. I was very proud of my 4 year old who got herself into Gryffindor, and a sticker and sweets to prove it.
I, myself, wouldn't queue up at midnight either. But in my humble opinion, any book that has kids so excited has got to be a good thing. Any book that has dragged kids away from their computer game has got to be a great thing. And any book that brings a fun community spirit and makes readers of all ages happy has got to be a fabulous thing.
love,
Jacqueline
xxx
p.s. I have absolutely no idea how I have gone into letter writing mode.
Because letters are classy.
OK Emma, I simply can't understand why anyone would want to do that. You couldn't pay me enough money to stand in (or on) line overnight for anything.
Rosa, I can't speak for where Emma was, but here in Cow Pie it was a lot of fun. People were very inventive with their costumes. The zoo came, bringing with them owls and a snake. There was a "Potions Lession," that wound up with a fireball bursting in front of the Professor.
why didn't emma stand in line while don went to look at electronics?
jilly
Because they're so in love that they can't stand to be separated even for a few minutes. :-D
That was weird . . . for a brief moment I saw one of the deleted comments and then it was replaced by the thing saying it was deleted.
Ooooh ooooh urban! What did it say?!
Clanky,
They were comments from Alias Moi about Harry Potter, and she is now persona non grata. I will delete all comments from her.
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