I Survived the Harry Potter Party...

[AnaKhouri]

...and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

Actually the t-short isn't bad. The store had them custom-made so the front says "The End is Near: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 7/21/07" and has our website on the back. A customer offered my co-worker $50 for his so I'm thinking of selling the thing on ebay.

Last night the store had FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE in it. Now, we have a large store, but it was still impossible to breathe. Luckily I missed most of that because I was crouched in a maze in a sweltering black cloak, jumping out at little kiddies who shrieked "Expecto Patronum!" at me. My co-worker K had the best Dementor costume though, she constructed it out of boxes and black cloth so the thing was 7 feet high and looked like one of the monster costumes from that movie "The Village". I didn't have any pockets so I don't have pictures, unfortunately.

I got off work around 1:30, which was earlier than I'd expected. I actually had to work the registers at midnight but we got through this huge long line in about an hour. Apparently last year a bunch of people asked for the boxes (they are white cardboard boxes with the book's title on the side) so this year they decided to sell them for $1, proceeds to go to Raptor Rescue, an organization that rescues, rehabilitates and if possible releases injured and sick birds of prey into the wild. This resulted in the funniest conversation I have ever had.

Me: Proceeds from the sale of the boxes go to Raptor Rescue. They save injured raptors.

Him: What are you talking about? Raptors are those things from Jurassic Park and dinosaurs don't exist!



I explained and he bought a box. He likes hawks, apparently.

Boxes were a hot commodity for some reason. There were people lined up (next to my register at the end) waiting for my co-workers to get more unpacked. I witnessed a woman in a witch costume bitching out another woman for perceived cutting in line. She waved her wand at the other woman like she was shaking her finger.

Anyway, it wasn't that, but I can't say I'm sorry it's the last book.

PS- My best friend told me her nephew dressed up as Dolores Umbridge for the party he went to. I told her she better have pictures!!

[ArenaBoy]

I arrived at Borders at 8 dressed like a dementor. Got way too many pictures taken with random strangers (I forgot to bring my camera so no pics). There was also a guy who dressed like Hagrid, guy had the size and height down. There was also a good caricature of Professor Trelawney. They kept the chaos in control quite well. On a side note; if you ever dress like a dementor make sure you leave some space so you don't trip over your robe.

[myswtghst]

At the last minute, I was talked into going to a HP party. My original plan was to get the book this morning at Costco, but my friends who do a podcast were helping host the party at our comic book shop, so I went there.

In the end, it was a good choice. Only about 20 kids running around, plus a number of adults, I was able to buy 2 books (1 for me, 1 for my brother-who is buying me an MSU football jersey to pay me back ), even though I didn't preorder, I also got 3-5 of Ex Machina, and they had the best/worst magician I've ever seen. He flubbed his first trick and was unbelieveably creepy (in a stalker-ish type way) but still managed some good tricks, not to mention some help from the comedic stylings of the shop owners 6-yr old son, who was adorably hilarious and inappropriate.

Also, I got home at 2am, then stayed up til 6am reading. I'm up to chapter 18, about halfway through, and I *cannot* wait to get out of work so I can go home and finish the book. I can't bring myself to keep reading at work, I've already been crying over the book, and don't need to inflict that on my coworkers.

[ArenaBoy]

I finished the book about 3 hours ago. I heard from one of my friends who didn't preorder went to Meijer and got the book for cheap and faster than her friend who preordered at Borders. Quite a laugh. On a sidenote we got posters when we left. They show the cover of the final book.

[myswtghst]

I heard from one of my friends who didn't preorder went to Meijer and got the book for cheap and faster than her friend who preordered at Borders.

The last few books, my brother and I just went to Costco when they opened and picked them up. No muss, no fuss, and cheap to boot.

Granted, I only paid $25 per book last night, and didn't even have to preorder.

[Dreamstalker]

My store wasn't too bad, the main action was downstairs with a house elf cooking contest (no elves were harmed, just innocent food ingredients), trial of Snape, costume contest and other stuff. All the books we got in were spoken for via preorders (as it's not a series we normally stock, the owner didn't want to get mass quantities over what would definitely sell); I was expecting a few telephone SCs due to that but there were none.

I wasn't able to get my Moaning Myrtle costume organized at all (dammit). Oh well, maybe for the next film.

Right when the prepay frenzy started, the receipt printer decided to take up origami. Somehow, the carbon paper had gotten scrunched up inside the housing and was printing over itself (there was no sign of anything being amiss until the white paper jammed and the carbon started feeding itself through the slot; I opened the housing and fwomp, avalanche of yellow paper).

[BookstoreEscapee]

We had a few people ask if they could have a box. The head cashier told them to come back today and ask. We just didn't want to be dealing with all that. I was opening boxes and bagging for her, and was breaking down the empties and tossing them out the end of the cashwrap on the floor, so if someone wanted to grab one it wouldn't have been hard, though they were on the opposite side of the direction the people were moving off the line so I don't think anyone did. Basically people were told that once they got their book to move towards the door and if they were waiting for people they had to wait outside. A few employees took boxes but at the end of the night the rest all went in the cardboard dumpster.

The first person to get the book was a guy with a little kid on his shoulders (maybe 4 or 5). The kid held the bag over his head as they headed for the door and everyone applauded.

We also had a girl come straight from her wedding reception. She and her bridesmaids came in, followed by the guys, all in their wedding attire. She had wristband number 1, which she actually got a couple weeks ago when she went to the manager and explained that she was getting married that day and wanted to get the book after the reception since she was leaving early Saturday morning for the honeymoon. They gave her the wristband then. It didn't get her first on line but it did get her in the store even though we were at max capacity and they weren't letting anyone else in (if she had just been a random person with #1 they wouldn't have let her in, though). She got a round of applause as she was walking out with her book, too.

We had a line from the door down to the pizza place about 4 stores down, waiting for people to leave so they could let more people in. They had 2 security guards and a cop to help enforce the capacity limits and didn't have any problems. I heard a few people complaining but they weren't complaining to me. If they did, I would have just told them to take it up with the big guy in the suit!