Learning when to stop

Wet to B&N to cash in that gift card tonight (picking up Perez Reverte's The Nautical Chart and Connie Willis' Passage, ordering a Howard Woldrop collection, an Iain Pears' Art History Mystery and John M. Ford's Heat of Fusion - for which my order is for the last one in the warehouse, so fingers crossed) and ran smack dab into a horde of Potterites lining up to get the armbands to tell them where to line up to get the book come midnight. 

While placing the order for my books I asked politely if they would give me a copy of Deathly Hollows now if I promised not to read it before midnight. This got the desired laugh and then the information desk lady told me that doing so would surely get her fired - B&N had taken such a hard stance on this that they were not even allowed to take photographs of the boxes that contained the books, never mind the books themselves! 

"Just looking at them burns our eyes out!" her companion added. 

"Like the arc of the covenant in Raiders, where if you opened the box your face would melt and explode?" Yes, they nodded, "Exactly." We shared a laugh and I wished them well on the rest of their very busy evening. 

I pride myself noow on not adding that this means that all of the UPS delivery men must have been from the family of Kohath of the tribe of Levi. It's best to know when you're far more likely to leave the audience confused then you are to get a laugh. But I can thank A&E discussions for giving me yet another piece of obscure knowledge.