The Question of the Day

It seems that the question of the day is, “What page are you on?”

No spoilers.

I’d pretty much figured on not picking up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows until after Comic-Con. I had some things I wanted to make sure I got finished first, in particular some website updates. But then alenxa finished the book on Saturday, and I decided that the updates I had left weren’t quite so important as the ones I’d done Saturday afternoon. So I picked up the book Sunday afternoon, and put it down around 11:00 at night, a little over halfway through.

This morning I took the car in for some fairly major maintenance. They’d offered a complementary rental, which I happily accepted, and arranged for Enterprise to send someone over. (I would have been quite willing to walk, since it was hardly even sprinkling, but figured if they’d made the arrangements, I might as well. As it is, I think it would have been faster to walk.)

Naturally I pulled the book out in the waiting room. After a few minutes, the 50-ish man a few chairs over asked,

“What page are you on?”

“428.”

“432.”

I found it funny that we were not only both reading it, but within a few pages of each other.

After picking up the rental, I drove over to my allergist. Afterward, as I was making my next appointment with the new receptionist, I noticed the book on her desk (open and upside-down, but it was recognizable by size, color, and a name which jumped out at me before I looked away). Before I had a chance to mention it, the doctor walked up, noticed my copy sitting on the counter, and said, “Oh, you’re reading it too?” She then explained that her son and daughter (the latter turned out to be the unfamiliar receptionist) had each gotten their own copy so they could both read it immediately. At this point the daughter asked me,

“What page are you on?”

I opened the book. “448.”

“Oh, I’m on page 530” (or something around there). “I’ll close it so you don’t see anything.”