There but not there

I called my husband and dad on skype yesterday, eager to hear how the inauguration had gone... And it turns out, they didn't even make it inside! They stood in line starting at 8 am, and the line simply didn't move. There were no signs, no authorities, a sea of bodies as far as they could see, and the crush of people made it impossible to go anywhere. Other ticket holders started to protest, it was a chaotic scene, evidently, people clambering over walls, even some arrests after a while, and although they did everything as they were supposed to, they, along with hundreds of other people holding tickets, never got through the gates into the Mall. How disappointing! I'm glad I wasn't along, because I would have been just devastated. My husband, much more able to take these things in stride, was laughing about it already. He flew thousands of miles to attend the biggest event in recent history, only to stand in the cold for a few hours, unable to see or hear any of it! He was interviewed by a reporter and is already in the news, if that's perhaps some consolation. Sigh. He'll just have to watch the inauguration on the internet, like the rest of us poor overseas saps.