So I joined in the cultural phenomenon that is finally over – the purchasing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I arrived at about 11:30 and didn’t see any sort of line in the store and my naivete had me believing that maybe it wasn’t going to be that big of a thing so I proceeded to start to do my shopping.

After about 10 minutes of shopping, I started noticing a dull roar coming out of the back of the store. At first, I dismissed this to a rowdy group of people who were wandering around the store like I used to do with friends. I then came to my senses and wandered to the back of the store – in the back, there were hundreds of people clinging to the back wall of the store.

Talking to someone in the back of the line where I dutifully took my spot it turned out you needed bracelets – there were red, blue, and green bracelets. Each was named after a different Hogwarts Class – red was Gryffindor, blue was Ravenclaw, and green was Slytherin. Regardless of your place in line, the line was going to be re-ordered at midnight based on what color bracelet you had. Now the people at Walmart who thought it would be cool to arrange people by color AFTER they are in line must be the genius of the century. Since you know the people who had been waiting for 8 hours in line just thought it would be great to move at the end of the line at midnight.

I wandered to the front (leaving my cart to hold my spot at the end) and got my bracelet, which was a blue bracelet (I guess I’m a Ravenclaw). Well, it turned out they decided that the order was Red, Green, then Blue. So at midnight, my place line did not change. But later it seemed they added yellow – which I would assume is Hufflepuff.

I managed to get to the front of the line and pick up the book paying for it at customer service (which is where layaway was before Walmart abolished it). After this, I managed to finish my shopping of miscellaneous items. The lines for checking out for the rest of the items were on the day of Thanksgiving length lines. People were commenting and doing the communal experience that happens once in a while (I missed out on a Wii at Super-K on launch day). The people behind me were wondering between themselves how long the book was – they weren’t there to buy it. I turned around and said it was 780 something – and then admitted I was a sad man for knowing that. The guy behind me admitted we are all sad in our own type of way.

After this, I headed home to curl up with the book to go ahead and read it straight through like I had with the previous two books. I managed to make it to about chapter 10 before I passed out with the book as a pillow.

Going out to visit a friend the next day I had Xie drive so I could read. I didn’t read at the friend’s house and she made me drive home though. Saturday night I made a good run through the book but didn’t finish it. This morning I managed to finish the book. I had read most of the spoilers online but there were little things that I didn’t want to be ruined. Who died and who didn’t wasn’t a concern of mine.

I’m happy I enjoyed the series, not heartbroken that it was over. While the plot is good, J.K. Rowling’s writing style is something that is not for adults. So I’ve passed through the H.P. experience and joined one of the few mass reading weekends across America.

The two pictures of the line were taken from my camera phone so I apologize for the quality.