The Day After

I watched the inauguration and now, the day after, I'm watching the TV news about the inauguration. Some ex-Presidents were at the ceremony. Bill and Hillary Clinton were there. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were there. George H.W. Bush just got out of the hospital so he didn't attend. His son, George W. Bush, also didn't attend. When contacted by phone, Bush reportedly said, “I’m tired of these stupid inaugurations. They're a big hassle. It’s always too cold. And besides, I don’t even like Obama.”

Just kidding, people. What Bush actually said was, “Because of my dad’s health I don’t want to leave him for an extended period. If only some form of transportation existed that could whisk me from Texas to the capital in two or three hours and then, after the ceremony, whisk me back to Texas.”

Don’t be silly, George. You’re talking science fiction. A machine like that would have to travel hundreds of miles per hour. Your body would be crushed.

There were a lot of people on the west front of the U.S. Capitol where the inauguration ceremony took place. Kelly Clarkson was there. Beyoncé Knowles was there. Katy Perry and John Mayer were there. Ke$ha was there, too. I have no idea how they got tickets to sit with the President and the VP and all the other nabobs. I guess you have to be a bigwig, or know a bigwig, or know someone who knows a bigwig. I called my Congressman well before the inauguration and talked with someone in his office. I asked for a ticket to the ceremony. I said I wanted to sit in the VIP section. The person I talked with wanted to know why I thought I was qualified to sit in the VIP section. I told him I have a cousin who lives near D.C. Well, apparently that’s not good enough if you want to rub elbows with the big cheeses. I didn't quite get everything he said, which was something about limited seating and riff-raff, but the end result was I could watch it on TV or I could stand in the cold with 800,000 other people and ponder how long the wait for the porta-potty was becoming.

I didn’t go. Their loss.