Camping at Barnes and Noble

A few weeks ago I was invited by Stacey’s daughter (H14) to attend a book signing with her. Stephenie Meyer is coming to town on May 9 to sign copies of her newest release, The Host. Tickets became available on May 6 at the Barnes and Noble at FM1960 and Champions Forest, so I volunteered to take the day off to run up there and stand in line if need be. I was thinking, “B&N opens at 9, if I get up there around 5 I should be ok, right?”

Uh, sure!!

This is how it went down.

About a week before the tickets went on sale, I was talking to H14’s best friend, who is going to the signing, only to find out that she and her aunt were going to go up and buy tickets also. I called her and was like, “Hey, could you buy two for me?” No can do. Turns out the aunt is a fanatic and so are 20 of her friends and in order to procure enough tickets (you could only buy 4 tickets per person) for the signing, she talked a friend and her niece into coming with her and since I was only buying tickets for myself and H14, could I buy two for her, too!!

Sure, why not?!?

During our conversation I found out that they were planning on getting there around 11pm Monday. They had heard that a lot of people were planning on showing up and they wanted to make sure they got tickets. At that moment I started to get a little nervous about my plan to get there at 5am. I had promised my friend that I would get these tickets and if I came home empty handed, I would feel horrible!!! By the time I got off the phone, it was agreed that I would pick up H14’s BF and meet at the aunt’s house at 10pm where we would carpool to the B&N.

Ten rolled around and off the four of us went! Good thing the aunt drives an SUV; we had pillows, blankets, sleeping bags, chairs, snacks, cameras, extra cloths in case it rained, etc. The back of her truck was packed!! :D We were ready for a long night of concrete camping.

Just arrived, 11pm.

Just about to buy our books!! Our Killeen friend on the right.

Everyone was pretty lively until around 3 and then it began to settle down and folks began to nod off. Several of us made trips to the local Wal-Mart for potty and monotony breaks. I went around 3:15 with a girl who had traveled on her own from Killeen, TX. She arrived just after we setup camp and we invited her to join us. She fit right in and we all became fast friends. She and I spent about an hour wandering Wal-Mart; which I hate doing, but that morning it was absolute heaven. It felt so good to get up and move. Wal-Mart is weird at 4am. All the stockers were out and about and they had the radio jamming full blast over the speaker system.

I guess I crawled into my sleeping bag around 5 and laid there until around 6:15. I dozed/slept for about 45 of those minutes.

Houston, we have tickets!!!!!!!!!!

As a side note, at around 6:30am I'm sitting in my sleeping bag trying to stay warm when I see two chicks arriving all fresh faced and smiling. As they get closer I can't believe my eyes, it's my long lost friend Kelli!! I hadn't seen her in over 5 years!