D and I had our fingerprints on Wednesday for the adoption. We have to have an FBI clearance, as we are adopting internationally. I still don't quite understand why, since this is my THIRD time to submit my fingerprints to the FBI in recent years (the others were related to getting my law license, not my J-Lo comments).
If they want to come get me, they sooo know where to find me.
But, because I want this child, I smiled and obliged with their request. D took the day off of work, and we woke up early to drive the 80+ miles to our local BCIS bureau (which is redundant, as "BCIS" stands for "Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services"). We drove along the interstate blissfully unaware that the day from hell was just up the road.
We pulled into major mid-western city and followed the directions to downtown. As we sat in traffic, D glanced over at a flashing bank sign and said, under his breath, "shit."
In that quiet, unequivocal way that makes you know something really, really bad has happened.
"What?" I asked, fear tingling in my toes.
"That clock said 9:45," he said, as he sped up the car.
Our appointments, you see, were at 9:15 and 9:30.
D and I, somehow, had convinced ourselves that this city was in a different time zone than ours.
It was not -- we were late. Very, very late.
(I should do what any good serial novelist would do here, and leave you hanging 'til tomorrow...)
We finally found the building where we needed to be, parked, paid, and ran across the street. Since it was a federal building and we look like evil, evil terrorists, we had to go through the cluster of federal security agents before we could run blindly through the building looking for the unmarked elevator to take us to the basement.
"Ma'am, please empty the contents of your pockets and step through the metal detector."
BING BING BING BING
"Ma'am, please step through it again."
(Silence as Soper walks through)
"O.K., ma'am, you are fine, but there is a knife in your purse we are going to have to confiscate."
Knife? KNIFE? Do you REALLY think I would take a knife into a federal building when I am going to get fingerprinted for my adoption and I AM ALREADY RUNNING LATE?
"I think that is a lipstick," I said, as they indicated the "knife" on the x-ray.
"No, ma'am, that is a knife. Please open your purse."
Soper complies, pulling out LIPSTICK, MAXI PADS, LOTION, and a PEN.
"We need to run your purse through again, to see if it is in the lining."
Runs purse through again, finds NOTHING.
"We must have been seeing this," guard says, pointing to ROUND mirror case in purse.
Yeah, instead of "knife" he meant to say he thought I was carrying NINJA STARS.
So D and I fly the length of the building, hop in the elevator, and dash out through the basement to the BCIS office. "I think we are late," I tell the man behind the counter, apologetically.
"No problem!" he beamed, and handed us forms to fill out.
Is this the same BCIS that sent me the soup-nazi letter? The same BCIS that said D and I couldn't even enter the room at the same time because our appointments were fifteen minutes apart?
We settled down, winded from running, and filled out the forms. Within about three minutes of handing them in, I was called to the back -- ahead of the people who were sitting in the waiting room when we got there. Was it my winning smile that convinced them to give us special treatment? My booty-licious flat butt? The crazed look in my eye that said nothing, NOTHING, was going to stand between me and my baby anymore?
I was taken into a large room and fingerprinted by a jovial federal worker, who repeatedly rolled each of my fingers over the electronic printer at least eight times, as my fingers were "really little."
Um, actually, I have loooooong fingers for a woman. My hand spreads an octave over the piano, and if I had ever actually gotten to take piano lessons I would rival, um, really good piano players whose names I cannot spell.
I don't know what they do for people who actually do have little fingers. We spent about ten minutes on my right pinky alone.
I finished, D got his done, and we left. Whew! Time to go eat, hit a couple of art galleries, hang out and enjoy the day off.
And then, in the words of Julia Sweeney, God said "HA!"
Leaving the parking lot, D turned right to avoid the on-coming traffic. We made the block, which somehow led us into a dead end -- we had to repeat the process to get back to the street we had started on. As we rounded the corner, D ran the car over the curb.
"Oh, I am so sorry," he apologized, as he was driving my car. "No worries," I told him, as we had just been discussing that I needed to get my tires aligned anyway.
Drive down the street, turn to get back on the interstate.
Thu-dump. Thu-dump. Thu-dump.
"Uh, D, I think we are dragging something. Can you pull over?"
Oh yeah -- FLAT TIRE.
And guess what?
Wait for it....
Wait for it....
We were in the hood.
In the hood, in big mid-western city --and we BOTH HAD FORGOTTEN OUR CELL PHONES.
And because I am a good serial novelist, I will leave you with that until tomorrow.
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