A face in the inaugural crowd

Now I know what happens when the dog catches the car.

He throws a party, but is too worn out to dance.

And so the inauguration celebration for Georgia's first Republican Governor in 130 years has passed.

Sonny Perdue spoke briefly to the mostly tuxedo-clad crowd gathered in the Georgia World Congress Center last Monday night, thanking supporters, offering his love and wishing he could just hug everyone.

But a lot of the crowd almost missed it - stranded in a line that snaked from the lobby, down a hall, around a huge rotunda, back up the hall, back through the lobby, down an escalator, down another escalator and down another escalator.

Finally - after the Coat Check Room of Doom (I'll get to that later) and ANOTHER trip down an escalator - there was the ballroom, complete with $3 bottles of water and $6 mixed drinks.

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One more thing. Note to catering staff: you told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution there was enough food in the back to feed "half of Georgia." It probably would have been a good idea to put some of it out.

Now about the Coat Room of Doom. Long story short: my wife turned in a coat, I turned in a coat. After the gala, my wife still had a coat, I have plenty of World Congress Center red tape to keep me warm this winter.

Forgive the bitterness here, but I'm still a little tired (and cranky) from the late night. I don't mean to sound like the night was a disaster - it was really a whole lot of fun. My wife and I danced to the tunes played by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, enjoyed meeting people from across the state and getting re-acquainted with old friends.

We also met a great Atlanta cab driver. Really.

He talked about how dangerous his job was, how it kept him in the car 22 hours a day just to pay the bills. He showed us where the three bullets were still lodged in his face from a shooting a couple of years ago. And he told us why he came back to the cab.

"I didn't want to wash dishes," he said in a high-pitched voice.

In the days after the inauguration, Perdue unveiled his first budget - tax increase, cuts and all. But on a historic night in Georgia, when thousands of people in tuxedos and evening gowns crowded in to the World Congress Center, he was just a tired grandfather, holding one of his granddaughters and saving a hug for the rest of Georgia.

And probably wondering where he could trade the car in for a more economical one.