The Purple People Eater

Before I tell a truly terrible tale of woe, let me first say, YAY! Science is going to be returned to its rightful place!! And, oohhh, he paid homage to the non-believers, too. Progress... How I missed thee! And thank you, Marty Kaplan who never lets me down, for echoing my thoughts so eloquently.

I prepared an Inaugural Post myself a few days ago that's posted at MHM today. This was written BEFORE I knew that my sisters, who traveled from New Mexico to DC with 15 high school students, were going to end up trapped in a tunnel for five hours. Had I known that this was going to happen, I would have written a post directed at the Inauguration Party Planners, begging them to place port-a-potties inside the tunnel, or maybe a security guard, a policeman... a hot-dog vendor might've been nice. I would have asked them to drill some holes in the walls and give them air and sunlight. Or provide them with lawn chairs and send in some eye candy, someone who can sing a few songs, tell a few jokes, do some impromptu hypnotization on all those people who began to panic upon the realization that they were TRAPPED with an estimated 25,000 other people, just waiting for someone to light themselves on fire or get an explosive case of diarrhea. This was the plight of the purple people. That is to say, the people who had tickets to sit in the PUPRLE AREA but, instead, were corralled inside the Tunnel of Doom. FOR FIVE HOURS.

Before I get overly dramatic, let me just say that my pregnant sister and my short-tempered OTHER sister and all their small swarm of students made it out okay. A little hungry, a little thirsty, but OKAY, nonetheless. They (my sisters) didn't get to hear Obama's beautiful inauguration speech, nor did they see Aretha's fancy hat on an oversized screen. But they didn't get killed by the crushing crowd, either. Which, all in all, made the day victorious. I was compelled to tell you all about it because neither of these girls has a blog outside of myspace. And, man oh man. The story needs to be told. It could have ended badly. I could have been writing a post about my frantic trip to the emergency room IN DC. I can't even let my brain go further than that. So you inaugural party planners out there! More port-a-potties!! No tunnels without a paid uniform to keep the peace!! And maybe a secret escape hatch for the babies and pregnant ladies!!

By the way, say what you will about Facebook, but they are on the CASE. Two different groups have already been created for all you Purple People to vent some more. Share your stories and photos. Tell the Washington Post to suck rotten eggs for supposedly guesstimating 5,000 people were in there.

I dunno.... it kind of looks like more. The people in there SWEAR it was half the population of Alaska.

Reading through the Facebook comments, these poor people who came from every corner of the globe were HEARTBROKEN. And STILL, so much optimism. It makes my heart crack open reading them saying things like, "Well, I met some nice people, anyway." Or "Thanks so much for not rioting" without a HINT of bitter sarcasm, mind you! In fact, I'd venture to say that they were as sincere as Linus out in his pumpkin patch a couple of months ago. Even my pregnant sister who broke down in tears as she recounted the details to me over the phone... Even SHE put a positive spin on this ordeal saying, "At least nobody went totally apeshit. At least people were positive. They were chanting 'YES WE CAN!' Although I think it was in reference to getting out of the tunnel.'"

*sigh*

Nothing seems so bad anymore. Even at the height of scary, the height of chaos, things feel like they're gonna be okay. Sweet mother of all that is holy, THANK YOU, Mr. President.

And get home safe, America.