My Hero of the Midnight Madness

Last month my roommate and I had pre-ordered copies of the newest Harry Potter book. I was being hopeful I would somehow find the money for this. I knew by Monday this was not going to happen. We still planned to go to the after hours party and get her copy. I hoped to get her to read it quickly so I could borrow hers. She, like me, is very particular about her books but I knew she would share.

Monday afternoon a friend asked if he could go with us to the Midnight Sale the store would be hosting. Since good friends only add to any excursion, he was more than welcome. I got off work last night around 10:20. I swung by our house to pick up Roomie and we headed off to pick up the last of the three Musketeers. We got to the store about 11:30 and while busy it wasn't too crowded. In the parking lot I was given a belated birthday card from the person I'll now refer to as, my hero. In the card was a sweet note and the cash to buy a copy of the book for myself. Needless to say I was overwhelmed. Friends are fantastic. Not because they give us things but because they care enough to do so. My hero had just come along for the fun. He wasn't even going to get the book for himself.

Roomie and I checked in at the front and got our numbers for the sale after midnight. We met up with another person who was crazy enough to want the book last night. We all spent the time waiting searching for a second book for the roomie to buy. We each received a coupon for 25% off an additional purchase. I have often told her she has missed many great works of literature. I truly think she needs to go home to Indiana and slap her old teachers for short-changing her education.

As we wandered around the store we picked up several of the freebies being offered. My hero eventually became my carry-all as he carted around the freebies that were starting to pile up. He was well suited to the task as he had a Coke and was on a good sugar and caffeine high.

Eventually it was our turn to join the queue as our numbers were called. Here we picked up even more items and I won a box of Bernie Bott's Every Flavour Beans for knowing Harry's birthday.

We finally left the store and headed for home. Once there I dealt with a few things that needed to be done and then settled down with a large bottle of water to read. I started the book at 2:00 a.m. I read it straight through until 6:30 a.m. Drinking water keeps you awake without the excitement of caffeine. This is good because once you are finished you can go right to sleep. That is until you are forced to wake up because you have to pee. I talked several times with a friend from California who was up reading as well. We had spent part of last week exchanging ideas about what we thought would happen.

I got some good sleep until a friend in from Florida this weekend called at 11:00 a.m. It was just as well the pee issue would have woken me soon.

While you may not want to read it straight through in one sitting, it is a very good read. There were several good lessons to be gleaned from the pages. I'll not go into any detail here as I don't want to spoil it for others. After you have read it please feel free to share with me what you think you learned from the book. I have read all of the books with a godchild and even set a course in study for him. We have had many great discussions about valuable life lessons he has extracted from their pages.