Pink Umbrellas

A summer project of mine is underway: reread the entirety of the Harry Potter series. So far, I have relieved years one and two with some of the greatest characters known to wizardkind, and I am enjoying myself immensely. Much sleep has been lost over this project, as I seem to have developed a habit of starting a book and refusing to go to sleep until it is finished. But hey, Harry Potter is more fun at 2 AM anyway.

But here's the thing. Now I think about Harry Potter all the time, and how great it is and how much I love it. The other day, as my mom, sister, brother, and I returned from a rather exciting day spent at Six Flags, I asked my dear mother a question.

Mom, if Harry Potter were real and I got a letter from Hogwarts, would you have let me go?

Her response? No. Who says that? I mean, obviously Harry Potter is real and I just didn't get my letter from Hogwarts at age 11 because the wizarding world needed me to stay here and protect the muggles, but still. Really? I was in shock. And I didn't speak to her for the remainder of the drive home.

Okay, that's a lie. My furious silence lasted about 15 seconds before I realized that, in my anger, I was failing to protect my muggle family as I was assigned to do by my lack of letter. It was then that I used my secret de-angering technique and continued to intently stare out the window in search of any sign of danger. You know, fixed bludgers, swarming owls, Dark Marks, that kind of thing.

The other day, my sister and I wanted to watch a family favorite: My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding. I guess we all kind of connect to it--we're loud and crazy too. The trouble is, our copy is very . . . well loved. In other words, the DVD has all kinds of scratches on it. Generally, we just skip past the first time it freezes, and the rest of the movie works fine enough. However, we have since misplaced the DVD player remote, so we were rendered completely helpless upon its first freezing. In desperation, I cast my eyes about the room in search of something, anything, that I could use to circumvent the scratches. And that's when I saw it. 

The pink umbrella.

Having recently been reminded of our dear friend Rubeus Hagrid, I instantly knew what to do. I picked up that pink umbrella, swiftly made my way over to the DVD player, and gave it a few light raps. And, I kid you not, the movie began playing again a few moments later. Not one more glitch the entire duration of the presentation.

It was the greatest of my achievements to date. Thanks, buddy. Let's do that again sometime.