Sing Your Heart Out, Aretha!

I've been away for a few days. I just "returned" from Washington where I had trekked to see the Obama inauguration. Yeah, right. After a three-day bus ride and eating and drinking nothing but peanut-butter cookies and Cokes from bus-station vending machines, I arrived in the capital city. I had underestimated the coldness of the weather, so I was shivering hour after hour wearing only a light sweater and semi-sandals. Then as I was slowly walking from the Greyhound station to the inauguration site, I encountered wave after wave of large and small groups of people also walking toward it, or walking in other directions, or stationary. I perturbed one group of Bushites who chased me in the snow, and hit me with thrown objects. My arthritic knees and ankles gave out, and I began my long period of hobbling. Two other groups later down the road were not exactly the political type---more the punk-robber type, who dislocated my arm and gashed my forehead while relieving me of my wallet and watch. But I half-crawled to within---oh, I don't know, maybe one mile---of the inauguration scene, where I collapsed into two feet of snow. I think I did hear, however, the faint voice of the microphoned announcer from the main site announcing the arrival of President Obama.

I said I "returned" from Washington, but not in the literal sense. I'm still here in some hospital bed. The nurse tells me the inauguration is over; I missed everything. She kindly lent me a computer for my blog, and says that in two more days I'll be released. Then it'll be another long bus ride home---but only if I somehow can find bus fare. I guess it's off to the homeless shelter here in Washington for me, or begging on its streets for a while. When I arrive home, I have waiting for me a jury-duty summons, says the little woman. God bless America! Is this a great country or what?

-Old Gargoyle, Citizen