For her tenth birthday my granddaughter received an advance pay voucher for the new Harry Potter book from her parents.

The other day she called me and asked if she and I could go to Books a Million to pick up her copy at midnight Saturday, which I thought was tonight.

I stay up late anyway and this was her and her brother’s weekend to spend the night with us so I told her I would do it, but she could go to bed at her usual time and I’d go alone. She gets tired at 9 and goes to sleep at 10 on the weekends.

At 11 last night I got into the van and headed over to BAM, which is just a few minutes away.

When I got there the parking lot was full and I’m talking about this being a shopping center. I finally found a spot and walked over to the BAM store.

No one was lined up outside so I struggled to get into the store through the people milling about on the sidewalk. When I got in there the noise was so great it was next to impossible to hear myself think, much less talk. It was just the roar of hundreds of people having conversations.

I went all the way to the back of the store and all the way to the end of the wall on the right, which seemed to be where the line was.

At 11:30 someone made the announcement that we should line up behind the guy in the red shirt and snake our way through the aisles until we got to the register. All the people who had been asked all evening to push away from the registers so business could be conducted had to find a new space in line. Those of us in the back of the store and hidden by bookshelves didn’t get to see where the guy in the red shirt was.

The line didn’t move until one minute past midnight, and we didn’t even notice any movement for about five more minutes. Once it started to move it was up the aisle we were in, down the next aisle to the edge of the store and diagonally across to the guy in the red shirt and over to the registers.

Once at the registers I had to pass the voucher and they handed me a bagged book. Out the door by 12:15 am. Not bad, since there were over 800 people who had pre ordered the book and they were the only ones allowed to pick up a book last night.

Would I have done this for myself? No. I don’t read the books, but I had promised my granddaughter I’d do it so I did it for her.

I had showered before going over but felt as though I needed to shower again while there because of the heat generated by all the people in there and being between rows of books.

This store was built for about 50 people to comfortably browse in it and having almost 900 people there was a bit hot and uncomfortable. The people were fun and were having fun with the various contests and games going on.

Walking outside the store to my car I noticed people sitting on the sidewalk reading the book.

Maybe I should get the first six books and read the series to see what is so exciting about these books.

Anyway, my little pumpkin woke up to her Harry Potter book this morning and immediately started to read it. Well worth the wait and the sore back from standing so long.