Front of the Line

I went to Wal-Mart last night and was shocked to see hundreds of people lined up for the Harry Potter book; one 40-year-old guy said he'd left his mom's basement five hours earlier to join the line. There were a number of people dressed for the occasion, wearing Hogwarts school colors or a Harry Potter scar penciled on their oily foreheads. It seemed like an unusually intelligent crowd, like the studio audience for Jeopardy! or the contestants at the school science fair, but it was an awkward crowd too. They shifted uncomfortably as they stood in line, uniformly disheveled with an almost European approach to personal hygiene.

The line was also segregated by brightly colored wristbands, so I went to the front of the line to ask for one. Upon arrival I presented my receipt showing that I had pre-ordered the book to which the clerk looked at me and said, "You don't need a wristband, you can be first in line." Several who had invested their whole evening stared at me in disbelief.

So there I was in the front of the line as they counted down to midnight, ready to be handed one of the very first copies of the final Harry Potter book. As the seconds drew down, I heard multiple people behind me point at me and say, "Avada Kedavra," whatever that means. But as midnight came I received my copy of the book and went along my merry way, with only a fleeting thought of selling it for a profit to someone stuck in the back of the line.