Braving the Crowds

Where were all of you on August 2^nd at midnight? I was standing in a horrifically long line feeling so very old. Breaking Dawn, the ending to an epic series was released, so me, and about 600 screaming girls gathered outside Barns and Noble waiting.

But that isn’t where the story begins. Oh no. It all started when I was at work … around 4 I think.

4:00PM - Work

I was sitting at my desk folding and stuffing envelopes when my friend pops up on the instant messenger. Seeing as that is more fun I dropped what I was doing and began chatting about how excited I was to read the book, and my thoughts on what was going to happen (funny the silly things we thought about were actually true …) when she asked where we were going to get the book. I stated smugly I already ordered it so I didn’t need to join the big crowds, but wait safely in my house for its arrival. She said she hadn’t bought one yet and needed to get one. From there we decided to go to a Borders bookstore and see what was going on.

7:00PM – Home

I got home around 6:00, installed a few programs on my machine and waited for my friend to show up. Our plan was to run to our Borders store and see what was going on there. The run to Walmart and see what they had in store for the night.

In Borders we were too chicken to ask directly what was happening, so we snuck around the store reading various books trying to catch snid-bits of conversation. I should have been a detective I was so sneaky (flips book the right way) sneaky sneak.

We formulated a plan in the children’s section, Holly was going to buy a book and ‘notice’ the midnight release party and ask what is going on. I was supposed to be part of it too but I chickened out. I had over heard that they were going to show the trailer over and over and at midnight the coolest costume won a signed copy of The Host, and the person drawn from the raffle won the banner in their entrance way.

Boring.

So we left for Walmart.

Walmart there wasn’t much going on. The workers didn’t even know there was a party that night. They had to ask their manager (I didn’t mind asking there, I am brave in Walmart), and the manager said they had about 600 copies and were going to start selling them then.

Boring.

So we left for Barns and Noble. In the other city.

9:00PM - Barns and Noble

The mall was full of prom dressed girls and skittish boys (they read too I guess). We got pretzel bites and waited for the fun to begin.

9:30PM - Midnight Release Party

There was a red carpet leading into the store, body guards at the doors dressed in black suits and purple ties, and there was a full camera crew interviewing a group of girls dressed in their I LOVE JACOB shirts. After getting stickers and a wristband we headed inside. There were booths for nail decorating, face paint, and trivia. We skipped the first two and stood in the trivia line. It took about thirty minutes. I stuffed my hand in the box, pulled out a little paper that read ‘Eclipse 2’ and they asked me a question from that chapter.

“Which school did Edward make Bella sign up for even though she didn’t want to?”

Easy beans … Dartmouth .

So I won more stickers, a tattoo, and a button that read “I was bitten by Breaking Dawn”. We wandered around the store for a while before our second friend showed. We forced her through the trivia line and then started hunting for the vampire teeth we were seeing around.

11:00PM - Parking Lot

They kicked everyone out. I guess they wanted a clean store when they started the lines. There were about 600 of us. Holly had wristband D17 and Amanda has wristband F78. We sat on a grassy hill and waited till midnight.

12:00AM - Outside Barns and Noble Waiting

They got through each group in about 10 minutes, so by 12:30 we were out of there racing back home to catch the Borders party to see if we could get free there but they were out. Oh well.

My Prizes for the Night:

3 Sheets of Stickers

2 Vampire Teeth

1 Tattoo

1 Button

And 2 Bookmarks.