We came out of the metro this morning to total chaos. Crowds of people milling around, no signs anywhere, people hawking everything from t-shirts to laminated calendars, and not a red-hatted volunteer or policeman in sight. After walking aaaaaaall the way through the D Street/New York Ave exit tunnel for 395, we found the end of the line for purple ticket holders where we waited. And waited. And waited some more.
It became clear, after 45 minutes, that waiting our turn was going to be a losing strategy. So, we developed a new strategy - Rachel would walk ahead and blend into the line. Then I would follow, after a discreet waiting period. Some people might call it "cutting" (and we witnessed several public sessions of booing from other crowd members to try and shame "cutters"). We just called it "getting onto the Mall to see the Inauguration."
Coming out of the tunnel at 10:53 AM, we found all kinds of rumors flying around. The security machines are broken! They've closed all the gates!! The Mall has been taken over by aliens!!! We just carried on.
30 yards away from the Purple Gate, we found ourselves stuck again. Close, but there were still about a thousand people in front of us with only 17 minutes to go. We were literally inching our way forward, en masse, as all thousand of us tried to squeeze through a gate only five feet wide. The closer we got to the gate, the closer we got to our fellow crowd members. At one point, unable to reach my pocket for a kleenex, I was tempted to wipe my nose on the coat of my newest best friend, standing just a few centimeters in front of me.
A lady with a bullhorn started periodically shouting "Purple tickets only - all others please leave" at which point everyone in the crowd would begin waving their tickets, chanting "Purple Tickets! Purple Tickets!"
As it inched closer to 11:30 AM, the cutoff point for getting onto the Mall, the crowd began to turn ugly - people were shouting "Let Us In! Let Us In!" The lady with the bullhorn threatened to close the gates, people started shouting "No Pushing!" And then suddenly, after an impossibly tight squeeze, we were through.
After fighting through the crowd, jumping a fence to get to the South Capital lawn seemed a small price to pay for an unobstructed view. We were in place just in time for the opening prayer.
The Department of Homeland Security got $17 million for planning the Inauguration's security arrangements. We're going to put in a bid to the US Government to do the next one for $10 million...we'll save the USG $7 million and save everyone who attends hours of waiting and having to shout "Hey! What would Obama do?!"
3 comments:
I'm still really happy that not just one, but two of my hats made it to the inauguration, not to mention my fingerless gloves/mittens. (I just realized that I don't know if they are fingerless-gloves or fingerless-mittens. I'm surprised they haven't gone through an identity crisis previous to this. They're in a veritable winter clothing item limbo! Glove? Mitten? Who knows?!?)
My favorite picture is of you, fervently clutching your purple ticket.
HEY! Didn't I see you on TV in the
segment about the lack of effective crowd control?
Hahahahahahahahaha
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