Harry Potter, Rooster Slaughter

So Lola and I decided to head over to Borders last night for the Harry Potter Midnight Extravaganza. We've never done it before, and she really wanted to. I succumbed to the madness by reasoning that we won't have another chance.

What we didn't know was that the smart people (Ravenclaws?) had reservations. There were approximately five thousand people there, including babes in arms.

Here's how it worked. The Ravenclaws were given wristbands in the order they reserved their books. The rest of us were assured that we would be able to get a book, but we were going to have to wait until the Ravenclaws had all been served. That didn't seem like a big deal at 11:00 p.m.

We received a ticket. And a glow stick.

We went to the Sorting Hat and found out which house we belong to (Ravenclaw. Hmph. Could there have been some mistake?), and we sat outside on the lawn in the cool night air for a while. Voldemort showed up at one point and started cursing Bellatrix and Narcissa in the middle of the street and shouting at them, while some ignorant muggle sat there and honked at him to get out of the way. They didn't seem to notice. The women just writhed around in pain and begged for mercy, and finally He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named let them go. Then they got out of the way of the car, which I think they never saw as an actual threat to them.

We drank all our water and ate our snacks.

The guy on the lawn next to us talked about how much redheads are hated and persecuted in England.

At 11:30, they started lining the Ravenclaws up. There appeared to be about four hundred of them. At 12:01 a.m., a shout rose up. Those of us with tickets, not wristbands (corralled in the children's section) looked hopefully to the front of the store. The line did not move. At about 12:20, another shout went up. The first book had finally been sold. We don't know what took so long, but it was fun to see it held up victoriously as the guy left the store.

At 1:00 a.m., they had served about 100 of the Ravenclaws. Those of us in the children's section were beginning to droop. A girl in the group next to us talked loudly about how much she hates J.K. Rowling as a person but loves her as a writer.

People with wristbands began giving them away to the pathetic ticketholders, saying forget this line, they were just going to go to WalMart.

I began to realize that it was going to be at least 3:00 a.m. before we ever had any hope of getting in line. I told Lola that I appreciated the concept of "hanging in there," but that I didn't think it was going to be possible. She agreed without too much debate.

We stopped at Macey's on the way home and purchased the book. Don't ask how much we paid. It was probably illegal how much they charged, but I didn't want to go home without a book after all that. I almost threw up when I saw the Costco price. Oh, well.

I read the first three chapters and was asleep by 2:30 a.m.

Five hours later, I got up and went outside with daltonboy to kill roosters (two). It seems a neighbor has complained to the city about the noise, and we're in big trouble. We're hoping that getting rid of the noisemakers will help us plead our case with the city and they'll let us keep the hens.

The job wasn't as horrible as we'd anticipated, but I don't necessarily want to do it again. The roosters were very good about calmly giving up their lives. I shed a few tears, thinking of them as cute little chicks, remembering how they would perch in my lap, and seeing their life blood drain out while they just looked at us, all trusting and quiet-like. Then we plucked and eviscerated them. That's when the fun started.

We found some great information online, so neither one of us got one drop of blood on our clothing, and I wisely didn't puncture the intestines during the evisceration process, so it didn't even smell bad. DB had the hard part--he had to do the actual killing. He was very good about it, but I could tell he needed a hug after it was all over.

Daltonman, who fancies himself a heartless executioner, came in while we were plucking and got so sick that he had to leave the room. Ha! is what I said to that. I only gagged once--when some unexpected slime came out and got on my hand. The expected slime wasn't a problem at all. And now we have two chickens in our freezer--all processed and ready to bake.

Next I read the Harry Potter book. It was good.

And that, my friends, was a full day. Now, I'm going to bed.