Willy Wonka and the Potter Factory
because we managed to stay there for a good hour. Then the momentum started to build. More and more families began to arrive. Some were last minute, others had taken their ticket at 8:00 and were returning for the sale. I actually took pictures of the crowd, like some book tourist and asked myself more than a time or two what I was doing. I think a few customers wondered the same thing. I felt a little better when I saw a flash from across the "self Help" section and knew that I wasn't the only one looking like an idiot.
It was a craze and I was just as sucked in as the six year old's I was trying not to be trampled by. The aisles were full by 10:30, the courtesy reading chairs had been claimed long before that, and kids were resorting to camping out under the four legged tables that held all of the books they didn't want to read.
At 30 seconds to midnight they began the countdown and the entire store rang out with glee as the first books were rung up. There was little pushing or shoving, but careful guarding of those valuable "white numbered tickets" that guaranteed your sale. They called 40 numbers at a time, and as the children ran off screaming with the new Harry in hand, many of them didn't even leave, they just opened the cover and began reading right by the front doors.
I was number 217 and it only took my about 20 minutes to actually get to the counter. It was very well organized and I could tell the bookstore knew how to handle the situation from past Harry sales. I plunked down my $20 and they handed me my 800 pages of pure joy. As soon as I was back in the car I read chapter headings to my sister, who had been so kind that night. She hadn't read any of the books until she had seen both the movies. Then we decided to read Azkaban together, so she and my Mom would be caught up a little. We'd only just begun Goblet when book 5 came out. So we sat in the car, with our Harry Potter glasses on that they had given us when we got our picture taken with the Harry Potter cardboard stand-up, and anxiously flipped through the pages. I wouldn't go
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