The kids and I went to get the new Harry Potter book at the BX tonight. We went at 10pm, stood in line for half an our waiting to get in, and got 2 numbered tickets (so we could buy 2 books. People got one ticket per ID card holder) The numbers on the tickets were for a door prize drawing after we bought out books.
We hung around the food court for an hour and ate some Baskin Robbins ice cream sundaes, and then we decided to go get in line for the book which went on sale at midnight. There were about 15 folks in front of us, and the line grew pretty rapidly.
At close to midnight, a family of three people sauntered over to the register and handed their tickets over to the cashier. She told them that they had to get in line. They said they didn't because their tickets had numbers on them. She said they EVERY ticket had a number on it, that the numbers didn't mean that was the order in which you received your book. They said that it did. By this time the rest of the line had overheard what was going on, and someone asked them if they thought that we were all standing in line to pass the time. The man of the family said that they didn't see the line forming, which caused quite an outburst of laughter. I said that I didn't understand how you could not see the line... there were close to 300 people in it; it snaked from the front of the main store all the way down to the food court. You simply couldn't miss it.
The manager was called. He came, he listened to the man bitch and complain....and he said that there was nothing he could do, that they'd just have to get in line. By this time the midnight hour had arrived and the line was moving. The man bitched and bitched about it until finally the woman in front of me said "oh for gods sakes, give him a book so he'll shut up and go home". The dude got his book, paid for it, and as he left people started boo-ing and saying really loudly how wrong it was to do that, especially in front of your kids. I know he heard it, he'd have had to have been as deaf as a post to NOT have heard it.....
....and I hope he feels like crap about it. What he did was bullshit....what kind of a message is he sending to his kids, behaving like that? That if you bitch loud enough and long enough, you get what you want? Nice attitude.
There were a lot of people there tonight, from the base commander and his kids to one-striped dorm-dwellers. This guy made quite a spectacle of himself in front of EVERYONE. This is a relatively small community, and he's going to be recognized. People will remember him....not for anything good, though.
He's going to be known base-wide as the smacktard who pitched a fit over a book.