This year they began at 8:00 pm giving out red armbands, then green armbands, then blue armbands, then yellow armbands. The instructions were given that at 11:30 pm they would announce that all red armbands line up, then after they bought the books. Then it would be green’s turn until all bands and purchasers purchased their books. BTW, the line would be in the old layaway department in the back of the store which is now the site to store department.
As 11:30 pm rolled around no announcement. 12:00 am it appeared from the cheers that the books were out. The books had to be purchased in the rear of the store. And by the way, there is only one cash register in the rear of the store.
So, as 12:45 am approached we were getting closer and one of the ladies went up to find out what they were doing. They were not separating the arm bands. But she was told that if you didn’t have an arm band then you were told to go to the back of the line.
Shortly, after 1:00 am we had our copy and they gave us a poster, a bookmark and something else. Oh, and the neat colored armbands each one had a separate character’s name on it. They had a gentleman (that was actually leaning on each and every book take your armband from you and cut it in half with scissors) this was presumably so that you couldn’t hand it off to someone in the back of the line. Which would have been difficult since the crowd wouldn’t let you cut in line anyway. There were young kids and adults that felt that the armbands should have been a keepsake that didn’t get cut in half. But the kids were most upset.
The bottom line is my oldest son has the book and has begun reading it and it must pass through his siblings. I will be the last of the line to read it.
It would probably be a good idea for me to start on the first book first. You think?
