Last week, we attended the Inaugural of the new president.
Normally, I try to avoid both outdoor events and crowds. Put them together, and you have my personal idea of hell.
Don't get me wrong. I love the outdoors...from a distance. I love the Travel Channel shows where people travel many miles to far away places where toilets are a thing of the future, snow inside a snow globe is a sight to behold, and pretty postcards showing exotic places that have bugs as big as your head and food is whatever strolled by too slowly for its own good five minutes before are right up my alley.
As for the crowds...nope. Nothing I like about crowds. I always thought of Where's Waldo as a form of torture. Why do we care where he is anyway? If he is dumb enough to keep getting lost in a crowd, then I say let him find his own way out!
But the inaugural was different. It was a once in a lifetime event, so I sucked it up and went with Tim (making sure I used the bathroom at the hotel first, since I am hoping to keep the use of a Port-a John as a limited lifetime event --patriotism only goes so far) and two million of my closest friends.
Boarding a bus to get to the event, spirits were high. People were not at all cranky despite the fact that we had so many layers on we looked like the Michelin Man on steroids. (In fact, we had on so many clothes that when we got back to the hotel, I had to reintroduce my thighs to each other) But we were happy as we stood in line, made a few new friends, shared blankets, hand warmers and binoculars and made it back to the bus while we still had limited feeling in our extremities. All in all, a good morning.
And that is where the good mood took an ugly turn.
Since we weren't able to bring in large bags(or purses) we had had to limit ourselves to the necessities, and with the temps in the 20's, that meant extra layers (see above note about hating the outdoors), and not a lot in the way of food. A bag of cranraisins will only get you so far.
Arriving back at the hotel, we found that the cafe was closed (hmmmm, packed hotel, lots of foot traffic from the inaugural, lunch time, and the cafe is closed. What do you want to bet the next place that manager will be stationed will be accessible only by raft at high tide and the entrees will include things with many legs and an exoskeleton.), so we headed to the bar...along with half a million other people.
Okay, no problem, we would grab a sandwich in the lounge at the free buffet and then have an early dinner. Okay, problem. The only thing left up in the lounge was some kind of congealed greenish stuff on foccacia and a roll-up that looked like turkey, but tasted like it might have once scoured the bottom of the sea for its meals.
Well, then, we would leave the hotel, go to one of the four thousand nearby restaurants, have a large, late lunch and then eat lightly for dinner. Nope. The other million and a half people happened to have the same idea, only sooner.
Soup and sandwich places? Lines out the door. Pizza place? Lines out the door. Outrageously expensive burger place where no one in their right mind would ever go and pay that much for an upgraded McDonalds's big mac? Forty-five minute wait. Chinese take-out? All took out.
As our blood sugar dropped and our shoe leather wore out, we began to get a bit, shall we say, snarky. We started wandering in and out of doors searching for anything edible and trying not get frostbite on the way. The snack aisle at CVS started to look like the gourmet salad bar at Whole Foods. We convinced ourselves that grease was one of the major food groups.
Barely able to keep from snarling at the jovial (and well-fed) passerby, we decided to go back to the hotel and just order room service. Okay, either a really, really late lunch or an early dinner and we'd skip one whole meal altogether.
Hardly glancing at the menu, I dialed the extension for room service (I was planning on ordering one of everything, so I figured the actual names of the items didn't count). After fifteen rings, it disconnected. Uh oh. I tried again. Same thing. This was not good. Once more before I raided the mini-bar and made a meal of Oreos and a Baby Ruth.
Finally, someone picked up. The hotel operator. It seems that when those two million people finished gorging themselves on all of that delicious food, they came back to the hotel and ordered room service for dessert. They put me on hold until they could connect me.
When room service actually picked up, I ordered so fast I was on the drinks and they were still writing down our room number. But at last our order was placed....and would be delivered in an hour and a half, maybe.
Let's just say, I wouldn't have wanted to be the one on the other end of that phone.
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