Wasted Opportunity

We’ve had a heat wave here lately. It hit over 106oF this weekend. Now, take a good-sized Borders and cram an additional 500 people into it beyond the normal Saturday afternoon customers and you’ve got a recipe for a good session of people watching.

I’ll be one of the first to admit I hate crowds. If this book signing hadn’t been at my local Borders I wouldn’t have gone, especially if I’d known how many people would show up. They turned the AC down to 60o and it didn’t help. The only place you could feel cold air was under the vent in the hallway by the bathrooms.

I convinced DH to take the kids and go do something else, go home, whatever until I called them when I ended up with ticket #389 for the signing line. The line for the bathrooms were fortunately shorter.

Now, did I take advantage of this prime opportunity to watch those around me?

Not really. What was I thinking? Certainly not that this would be a great place to watch and think about non-verbal communication and expressions. No, my brain was obviously elsewhere.

It was interesting to note that the women took over the men’s bathroom as well because there were only three stalls between the two. While waiting in line three separate gentleman approached when a woman was inside the men’s room. The ladies on guard politely asked them to wait a moment and they just kinda shrugged and said they’d come back. This struck me funny because in my experience when a gal has to go, get out of her way.

Otherwise, the rest of my time was spent reading half the book that I was required to purchase in order to stand in line. I guess that says something for the author. I did overhear several “interesting” snippets of conversation. “Oh, I have no idea who she is, I’m a book collector.” Yeah, he didn’t look like a fanboi either, not like the guy dressed in red with purple streamers tied around his head, wrists and ankles, although I’m still not sure what he was supposed to be.

Oh… and did I EVEN think to take a camera with me? *headslap* *sigh* Oh well, 3 hours later I had three signatures and a couple cool stickers. Guess I better go get the loot in the mail to Bria (which is why I haven’t mentioned WHO was signing… Shhh… it’s a surprise!).