Washington , DC -- If you're lucky enough to get your hands on a ticket to president-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony, be sure to bring your enthusiasm – but leave your pants at home. Security procedures in place for the historic inauguration ceremony for America 's first-ever president whose last name begins with a vowel* include restrictions on a number of usual items such as sticks, strollers and Thermoses.
Many of the bans are based on simple common sense – since only 240,000 tickets have been issued, it wouldn’t do to have attendees drinking soup or coffee from a Thermos when they should be drinking in the magnitude of the moment. It just wouldn’t be fair to other Americans who weren’t lucky enough to get one of the hotly sought after tickets, or smart enough to show up in the no-tickets-needed standing room area that will accommodate another 750,000 people.
Strollers have been banned because most of them are made from hollow tubular metal. Although the Secret Service have declined to comment on the hazards of tubular metal, statements made by Carole Florman, spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, would seem to indicate that they’re afraid people could hide their weed inside the stroller frames and cut into the committee’s own profit margin. Concession sales of basic necessities such as bottled water and illegal drugs inside large events like the presidential inauguration are typically a huge financial boon for the sponsoring organization.
And although the stick was itself recently inaugurated into the National Toy Hall of Fame for its all-purpose, no-cost recreational qualities and its ability to serve either as raw material or an appendage transformed in myriad ways by a child's creativity, sticks will not be allowed at Obama’s swearing-in ceremony for fear that attendees could end up having too much fun or poking each other.
At such a momentous occasion, attendees have a responsibility to history, major news networks and their fellow Americans to behave appropriately, and that means following the security procedures posted on the Senate’s Inaugural Webpage (http://inaugural.senate.gov/2009/accessibility.cfm). Despite earlier reports that all types of clothing could be worn to the ceremony, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies has instituted a ban on pockets by placing them fifth on the list of prohibited items.
“It wasn’t our intent to ban pants entirely,” said a committee member who spoke on condition of anonymity, “but rather, we felt that allowing people to bring pockets into the ceremony could create a culture of concealment that would not be an appropriate beginning for this administration that so highly values transparency in government.”
Although the ban on pockets was initially the a result of a typographical error on the Inaugural Webpage (they meant to ban pocket knives), it was decided that it should be left in place because everyone knows that Obama and his disciples are perfect and incapable of mistakes. After discussing the issue at the committee level, a decision was made to disallow any article of clothing that has pockets, which includes jeans and trousers.
“Rather than edit the website, it was decided that we would create a reason that sounded plausible in retrospect,” said the same committee member.
The ceremony’s organizers have pointed out that even though most kinds of pants are banned, and showing up pantsless is preferred, attendees are still welcome to wear sweatpants and biker pants.
* With the exception of John Adams, John Quincy Adams and Chester Arthur, who don’t count because it was a really long time ago.
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