From her perch near the finish line, The Mag's Anne Marie Cruz tracks Marion and the moths.

I skipped the first day of track and field (athletics, as it's known to the rest of the world, or did you know that already?), so on Saturday I wasn't prepared for 100,000+ people trying to get into one of only two open gates to the stadium. Whose bright idea was that? Photo editor Nik Kleinberg and I tramped impatiently through the streams of people, trying to juke the slowpokes (people do not walk fast here, arggh), when a guy walking the other way stopped me.

Overheard

"The real Games don't begin until the competition ends."

—U.S. judo player Brian Olson, reciting the most relevant slogan for party-starved Olympians

"Hey, are you RTB like me?" asked the guy, who looked like a Cali boy, with his tan and his spiked, blond-tipped hair. I didn't know exactly what RTB stood for, but I'd seen those initials on some credentials, so I said, "Yeah." He then informed us, very friendly-like, that we were headed in the wrong direction. "Thanks for the tip," I said, following him and then blinking a couple times. It wasn't because I was surprised by his out-of-nowhere chumminess -- the atmosphere here is so happy, it's practically Disney World.

"Nik, am I deluded, or was that Jonny Moseley?" I whispered, as much as one can whisper over a stadium-sized din.

"I don't know," Nik said. "He looks burlier than he does on TV." I nodded. "There's only one way to find out for sure, then," Nik continued. "JONNY!"

And whaddya know? My man turns around.

Jonny, the freestyle skiing gold medalist at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, chatted with us as we all trudged past the locked gates, almost halfway around the perimeter. Turns out, it's Jonny's first Summer Olympics too, and he's doing online work for some company back in the states (its initials are NBC -- Aha! RTB = Really Taped Broadcast), which is a lot more work than he'd thought it would be. Hanging with the athletes makes up for the hours, he said. Jonny was there when weightlifter Tara Nott got the call that the gold medal was hers after all.

He bid us buh-bye, and I headed to my seat right at the finish line (Nik went to the field with the other photogs). I was ready for the swirling winds (hello, snowboarding jacket), but ill-prepared for nature's other assault: a plague of moths. They bounced off my head all evening long, like movie theater popcorn thrown by unruly kids -- if popcorn could be fuzzy, fist-sized and exoskeletoned. (By the way, this metaphor came to me before I read a media release from an Aussie enviro group about these so-called Bogong moths, which are considered a snack treat when "popped with corn," as the memo cheerfully suggests. Blech!) Let me tell you, Anne Marie attacked by swarm of winged insects = very, very unhappy Anne Marie.

The seats were full -- unlike in other venues where corporate blocks remain woefully empty--and the fans were into every event, even if five were happening simultaneously. They urged on the triple jumpers, heptathletes and pole vaulters with equal fervor, while patiently waiting for the 100-meter finals, men's and women's.

Most of the crowd was pulling for Marion, who wore that familiar look of don't-touch-me intensity. After she won -- with that familiar look of can't-touch-me supremacy --she looked extremely relieved to get this thing going.

I called huge Marion fan and Aussie swimmer Daniel Kowalski on his mobile (as they call cell phones in Oz).

Background check: DK won silver in the 1500-meter freestyle and bronzes in the 200 and 400 free, but he's been struggling with shoulder injuries, so he only swam the prelims for the 4x200-meter relay.

His voice mail picked up. "Daniel," I said into the telecommunications ether. "I know you're in the stands somewhere, because you couldn't possibly be missing this." Two minutes later, my phone (set to Havah Nagila) rang. It was Daniel, exuberant witness to the start of Marion's quest for five.

"Where are you sitting?" Daniel asked. "I'll wave to you." Um, I left my binoculars at the motel. "No, you'll see me. Really." Hmmm, perhaps common sense has temporarily been swept away with the Mrs. Jones moment?

C'mon, I'm wearing yellow, and I'm standing and waving halfway between the Olympic flagpole and the torch," Daniel insisted, standing and waving, like a foo -- wait a minute, I think I see you!

And there he was, a yellow speck, fluttering and bandying about, like a kernel of buttered popcorn with wings.

Anne Marie Cruz covers the Olympics for ESPN The Magazine. Right now she wishes she'd packed the RAID.