I bleed for Harry Potter

I have a patient who works for the Red Cross and she was in last week telling me about a blood drive they were having where they were doing drawings for copies of the final Harry Potter book. Being O-negative (the universal donor) and knowing I was way past due on donating, I figured what the heck, I might as well try. As I showed up, the lady overseeing the drawing said if I donated using the Alyx machine, which separates your red cells instead of donating whole blood (red cells and plasma) then you definitely get a book. So I said "sure" and won a voucher for a free Harry Potter book. We'll be with all the excited kids at Books-A-Million at 12:01 tonight. I just like the spectacle of the whole thing, and think it's so neat for the kids (not our kids, of course, we don't have kids, and the cats don't read Harry Potter -- they much prefer Neil Gaiman and James Patterson).

(By the way, I called Books-A-Million to ask how late they'd be open, thinking maybe if we show around 12:15-ish we'll miss more of the line, and the answer, like I'd expect from a cashier, was, "We'll be open at least until midnight." OK, the sale starts at 12:01, so I think midnight's a given, but I'm in a good mood -- maybe it's the loss of blood -- so I'll leave the sarcasm for another day...)