now what?

So Harry Potter Day has come and gone. I got my copy on Saturday and finished it this morning around 12:30 because I was DETERMINED to finish it before work today, because I don't trust people not to ruin things for me. Moment-ruiners. So it's over. You may think I seem remarkably calm about it, but really in my head I'm all, "OH NOOOOOOOO WHAT AM I GONNA DO NOOOOOW HARRY POTTER IS OOOOOVEEERRRRR," and clutching my hair and clawing at my face. It's very dramatic. I wish you could see it.

Alright, I'm exaggerating. What, like you're surprised? But I am very sad that it's all over, even though I'm happy with how it ended. You know how I take TV shows too seriously? Well, I'm worse with books. Sometimes they make me cry so hard I want to put them in the freezer. Sometimes they're so good that as soon as I'm finished, I want to read it all over again. I want to be buried with a copies of Pride & Prejudice and The Catcher in the Rye. Ha! I'm totally kidding. I don't want to be buried, I want to be cremated.

Why am I talking about my funeral? Anyway, there was a tiny snag in obtaining my copy of The Deathly Hallows. I waited all morning for the UPS man to bring it to me. ALL MORNING. When it still hadn't come by noon thirty, I briefly considered driving to Books & Co. to get a copy. I even called them to see if they still had some. I talked myself out of it because, um, that would have been crazy. Finally, I decided that I couldn't justify hanging around the apartment all day and so Heidi and I went to the pool. I checked our mail before we left and LO AND BEHOLD there was a card from the postman! Saying he was sorry he missed me! But that he'd left a package in the office! That's when I remembered that when I ordered my book, I had it sent through the postal service and not UPS. Oops. Hey, I never claimed to be smart. I ran back up to our apartment, clasping the card in my hand, and jumped around shouting, "it's here, it's here, it's in the office, my book is here, my book is here" while Heidi backed away slowly from the crazy, crazy lady.

We left for the pool but as we approached the office, we saw the leasing lady driving away in a golf cart with some other people, presumably to show them an apartment. I sensed a slight hiccup in my plan, but hoped there were maybe two leasing consultants working in the office that day.

ALAS! No one was in the office when we entered. I was so close to my book. It was RIGHT THERE but no one was there to get it for me. Then I remembered. I knew they kept the packages in an unlocked closet behind an unlocked door in an unlocked room. Unlocked! I weighed my options. I could go to the pool and wait for the lady to come back from showing apartments, but that would take tens of minutes. Tens! Of! Minutes! I didn't have time to waste! I had over 700 pages to read this weekend and those tens of minutes were important!

The obvious answer was staring me in the face. I knew where my book was. Heidi would be the only witness to my crime. I wouldn't even need to use any trickery to break into the closet because it was unlocked. What would YOU have done in that situation? I'm guessing you'd do what I did, which was throw open the closet door, grab the book, and then run out to the dumpster to throw away all evidence that the book had ever arrived by mail. I mean, if Harry Potter taught me anything, it's that it's OK to bend the rules once in a while. I think even Hermione would approve.