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Witches, weed and why, why, why?

I got locked out of my house the other day and had to go to my roommate's work to get his key. If I had known of the fiasco I was about to walk into, I would have stayed in the comfort and safety of my porch.

I was about to enter the witches' den.

My roommate works at Borders, and while the bad attitudes of a bunch of people with college degrees doing the work that any high school student could do is enough to scare most people, the witches' den I am referring to was created by the customers, not the employees.

More than 300 people were waiting for midnight to come with lust in their eyes, lightening bolts in their foreheads and saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths.

Why? The release of the latest "Harry Potter" book.

Harry Potter?

Who in the hell is Harry Potter?

An award winning author? A professional wrestler?

No.

He is the character in the latest children's book craze to sweep the nation, and everything else has been left in his dust. I guess that's the dust that was left behind after his sweeping ... or something. Nevermind. You get the point.

Borders was packed. You could hardly move around in there because there were so many people. And they weren't ordinary people either. They were weird people, dressed like witches and running around with a frenzied excitement that most people save in case they win the lottery. There was this one family that smelled like marijuana, the mother and the kids, but I think they may have been confused and thought that it was an event about really good weed.

It wasn't just kids, though. It was adults, too, and I don't just mean devoted parents. There were adults there without any kids at all. I could not for the life of me understand what all the fuss was about. So I asked.

Most of the people I spoke to were not what you'd call literary critics, but the general consensus was that the books are good. Well, I guess so. I've read some pretty good books in my day, but I can't say that I've ever read one that was so good that I would have waited in a line of 300, at midnight, just to buy it.

I did, however, find out some interesting information. It seems that, along with everything else that becomes absurdly popular insanely fast, there are factions out there that want it banned.

The interesting part about it is who wants it banned. The Christians, for one, but then they won't be happy until there's nothing left to read except the Bible and "How to Win at Bingo" books, but the witches of the world are also against little Harry. Harry Potter is a witch (or a warlock or wizard or whatever), which explains why the Christians are mad, but the witches of the world are claiming that these books are revealing all their age-old secrets.

Insanity! I love seeing these two factions united - Pagans and Christians together at last. Beautiful.

So go out and read these books. Or don't. I don't think it really matters, unless, of course, you're a witch or a Christian.