"Well, that could have gone more smoothly," I said to myself as I stood by the Reflecting Pool, shaking from a recent adrenaline infusion, several hundreds of thousands of my closest friends surrounding me.

I had just survived my first stampede.

I was not eager to experience a second.

I had arrived at the Mall at roughly 7:15am, Silver ticket in hand, quite excited to see the big swearing-in ceremony. Part of it was, of course, the historic nature of the event; part of it was that this, for the first time in my voting life, was a president-elect I had actually supported. Note that I do not say "voted for;" the great state of Ohio did not see fit to send me my absentee ballot. Maybe next time.

Anyway, regardless of my political alignment, through a series of deft maneuvers and complete coincidences, I had managed to secure that Silver ticket from a Michigan congressman. My parents' congressman, to be specific.

With four other doughty Silvers, I had made my way to the north side of the Mall, walked the 395 tunnel to the south side, and gotten into the Silver line about two blocks from the alleged Silver checkpoint (not to be confused with the actual Silver gate, which was another two blocks ahead). As we inched forward, two of my fellows were lost in a crush of humanity; the remaining three of us cleared the Silver checkpoint with perhaps an hour and a half to spare before the ceremony was to begin.

And then we stopped moving entirely.

Well, that's not true. We probably did move about 25 yards over the next hour and twenty minutes, but that was about it. Still, by 11:20am, I, along with Maureen, had a pretty good view of the Capitol (another of our group had been separated from us by that point).

We also had a pretty good view of the area we were supposed to be standing in, and it was far, far, far from being anywhere near full. As the minutes had crept by, this had gradually raised the irritation of the Silvers who could see this, although everyone was remaining pretty philosophical.

I now must take a moment to explain the spatial configuration that faced me at that point. I was facing North on the West half of Third Street; Mo was directly in front of me, and a woman in a wheelchair was directly in front of her. To our immediate left, a metal barricade. Beyond that, the East half of Third Street, with some low concrete blocks and two security guards. Beyond that, two plastic mesh fences; beyond those, the Silver standing area and the Reflecting Pool. And history.

At 11:20am, a disturbance: a large group of un-ticketed persons walked up the East half of Third Street and, as I could deduce from their motions with the guards, asked what the deal was with all the empty space in the Silver area. The guard indicated that they needed tickets to stand there. After a pause, the group charged the plastic fences, leveled them, and began pouring into the Silver area.

The army of Silvers standing around me shouted in dismay at the sight of these un-ticketed persons pouring in to our area, and accordingly began pushing towards the area, pinning me, Mo, and the lady in the wheelchair up against the barricade. Visions of soccer riots dancing in my head, Mo and I began shouting "Wheelchair!" at the top of our lungs; the press subsided enough for the lady and her party to move towards a gap that had opened in the barricade. Mo and I took the opportunity to scramble over the barricade; figuring that we had tickets, and frankly having no choice of anywhere else to go, we skipped over the downed plastic fences and arrived, with a few minutes to spare, in the Silver area, quivering from the cold and adrenaline and grateful to have avoided any crushing and/or trampling.

Here's the thing. At no point between 7:30am and 11:20am did anyone of a security persuasion do anything to help facilitate the process. Although I naturally understand why the personnel in my area(s) that morning wouldn't want to answer every time they were shouted at by some peeved crowd member, I firmly believe that if one security guard had gotten on a bullhorn and explained what was going on and/or told us what to do, a great deal of frustration and fence-breaking could have been avoided.

And so, as we move further into the jam-packed Spring semester, let me encourage you: if you know what is going on, for heaven's sake, speak up. It might head off a potentially deadly situation.