Against all odds, my friends and I somehow managed to land tickets to Barack Obama’s inauguration. But while our silver-section admission granted us a closer view than millions of Obama fans teeming on the National Mall, we were still in the most plebeian of ticketed areas. If we wanted the best possible spot, we were going to have to battle with 140,000 other early risers. And unbeknownst to us, we were also going to have to tolerate appalling police incompetence.

And so late at night on January 19, I put on three pairs of pants, grabbed our precious, fancy-looking tickets and some American flags, and we hit the road. When multiple detours finally brought us to our section’s entrance at 3:30 a.m., we found a very civil, self-policed line of 60 or so friendly people bundled in coats and sleeping bags.

By 4:30 a.m; the situation had devolved into mayhem. A few impromptu community organizers and I attempted to maintain our nice single-file line, but the surprisingly rude police officers refused to help. Thousands of people arrived from public transportation and crowded into a mass of hopeful yet frustrated pilgrims, interspersed with officers yelling conflicting information about which section of the crowd would be admitted first.

After lurching forward in the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, my friends and I took turns resting by sitting down on the permafrost in a bizarre forest of legs as the sky began to lighten. After a one second frisking, Transportation Security Administration officials eventually let us through. I could easily have carried a weapon onto the Mall.

Luckily, we managed to snag the best front -row spots in our section. Things were looking up as the sun rose on the first day of Obama’s presidency. The poorly-controlled crowd, however, had something else in mind. There were no longer any police officers in sight, and eventually the brewing mob mentality was set off by a few selfish fence-jumpers. Our entire section flooded forward over a flimsy three-foot plastic barrier and into a handicapped section, blocking the views of disabled people and ruining our hard earned vantage point.

By the time our new president appeared in the distance, we were freezing and exhausted. After the spell of his booming inaugural address was broken, we passed miles of street vendors selling Barack Obama Hot Sauce between the Mall and our hotel room, where we eventually collapsed, sleeping through the parade on TV.

The historical value of hearing Obama’s inaugural address in person can never be taken away from me. The experience was epic, emotional, and quintessentially American. But I learned something else that Tuesday–about why the market needs to be regulated and why you need barriers at a Girl Talk concert. People may be honorable individually or in small groups, but without stern and threatening enforcement, you just can’t trust a mob. By failing to present more than a sparse, disorganized police force, the committee planning this inauguration put far too much faith in the goodwill of this crowd.