So Close to History, and Yet So Far...

A friend of mine was amazing and scored a ticket to Inauguration for me (thanks Molly!), so for the past week I’ve been mentally preparing myself for the long lines, the crowds of people and the hours upon hours of standing in one place. In my mind, I compare it to New Year’s Eve in Times Square: you know you are going to be bored, cold, miserable and crammed in with a ton of other people, but you have to do it so you can tell your kids one day that you were there.

The morning started out well enough. We squished onto the Metro easily and rode into the city. We followed the map to the street where our color-coded gate was and as we turned the corner, we started to realize how the morning was really going to be.

Four blocks straight down the street, we could see a huge banner marking the entrance we were supposed to take, but between us and that sign were thousands of people packed in like sardines between the buildings running down either side of the street. We joined the crowd and started making friends with those around us as we inched our way down the street (that’s not an exaggeration either; it took us an hour and a half to go one block). Of course, I quickly became the tall look out guy that everyone would ask for an update from. It was okay, because I had been prepared for the moment by years of school dances from junior high to high school. I would always get my hopes up when the cute girl made eye contact with me and walked my way, but inevitably it was always, "Hey you tall kid, can you see my friend somewhere over there?"

For the most part, the wait was pretty boring, but there were some highlights:

- Mariah Carey and her husband being whisked past us surrounded by a security detail.

- No less than four ambulances (ambuli?) and two police cars working their way through the crowd, forcing us even closer to each other.

- Standing right next to the cannons as they gave their 21 gun salute to the new president (the woman next to me screamed and started to run away thinking we were under attack).

- Getting all the way to the end of the street, running into a fence and realizing the actual entrance was two blocks to the East (can we get some better signage next time, please?).

Just as I checked the time on my phone right at noon, thinking of how my employment with the Federal Government was officially at an end, I looked up to see the gates closing, literally in my face. From where I was standing, I could reach up and touch the closed gate. If there was a more appropriate metaphor for the moment, I don’t know what it was.

Once the gates were closed, the crowd erupted in chants of “let us in” and “open the gates,” but soon everyone realized that it really was over and their chances of getting in were gone. People quieted down, some crying and some describing the event organizers with words I won’t use here. As the crowd slowly dispersed, one of the many vendors we had encountered throughout the morning came wandering through.

“Get your ‘I was there’ buttons! Get your ‘I was there’ buttons!”

Waiter! Can I get a little more salt for this wound? Or at least a two-by-four I can swing at this guy?


P.S. - Just to offer a little bit of perspective: Yesterday we went into the city and scoped out our spot. This is where I should have been standing for the event:

I would show you a picture of where I actually was for the event, but it was too crowded for me to reach my camera in my pocket and it probably would have taken too long to blur out all of the middle fingers being waved in the air.

Oh well, Happy Inauguration Day!