How to go to the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States
How I did it: There were two positive aspects of waiting in line for mall access: the hokey-pokey and a national anthem sing-along. The rest of it involved people stepping on my toes, cops yelling in our faces (and threatening arrest if we contined to try to find out exactly what we were waiting in line for), and getting elbowed in the shoulder blade. I don't regret getting in line at 2 am, and meeting the nice FBI agent who had no clue where we supposed to go, but I do wish that the city had debriefed the staff that would be working crowd control so that I wouldn't have gotten out of line. I left the line after six hours because I was told that the mall access point I had been waiting for was closed and I was now waiting to watch the parade. As soon as I went the opposite direction from security, I found out there was another mall access point three blocks away. It would have been nice to say I was on the mall, instead of in an Adams Morgan pub, but I don't regret my decision to walk away from a situation that I felt was unsafe and uncomfortable.
Lessons & tips: Put up markers telling the crowd what lines are for. People with tickets left the line, running to hope that they were still in time to get into their section. Which means more tickets were sold than accommodations provided. That's another issue. It's not a parking lot, everybody will be there at the same time. If there is another access point for what we're waiting in line for, tell us that. And no smokescreening. I was waiting for more than six hours when I decided to leave. People in front of me had been waiting for two or fewer. Because we were told to go back and forth, which meant that people who got there later got to the front of the line, and people who got there earlier got screwed over. And more singalongs. Bohemian Rhapsody, Lean on Me, the Star-Spangled Banner, and the Hokey-Pokey made the night more bearable. It would've been nice if the cops had joined in. They probably would've been in better moods, too.
Resources: Hot hands. Srsly.
