One of the central logistical facts of life at the AELTCC is that rich people, especially older rich people, are typically way out of practice when it comes to maneuvering in dense crowds. They lack subjugation awareness, that sense that the crowd controls you. You see accidents that are best described as either “ping-pong type” or “Marxist.” An older lady who left her commemorative match programme back at her seat will realize her mistake mid-stairwell and execute an instant, self-assured stop-turn, never dreaming that the stairs behind her are already sealed off with other, equally space-commanding but currently desperate-to-descend older ladies, who are in turn being helplessly smooshed downward by the still more confident and downward-escape-determined older ladies above them, all of them clutching commemorative match programmes, self-assuredly. Whole sections of stairwell can be wiped out by one poorly timed text from a granddaughter in New Haven. Let a jowly burgher with a green plaid sport coat catch a glimpse of a recycling bin at the wrong time and the results are horrific. Eventually most people make it out with only nonfatal injuries. Everyone is very nice.
