Multiethnic Postal Fuck

[muckefuck]

My passport expired four years back, which is a depressing commentary on how long its been since I've travelled out of the country. Living with Nuphy, we managed a trip to Europe every two years, but monshu and I wanted to test our ability to vacation together successfully before blowing a grand on tickets. The happy experiment was chronicled in these very pages and now it's time to think seriously of flying to Amsterdam or Asia. And have I mentioned that my sister has invited me to play translator on a Germany trip she's tentatively planned for next year?

When I investigated the process of reapplication, I was dismayed to discover it wouldn't be as convenient as it was back when I first needed a visa to study in Germany. All documentation had to be sent to New Orleans, to be returned eventually with the passport. This is a high-touch thing for me; I wanted to walk in to an office and walk out with my new booklet, if possible. Unfortunately, the Chicago office will only do that if you arrive with international plane tickets in hand and pay through the nose. So when monshu got a notice that there was to be a Spring Passport Fair at our local post office today, I figured, Here's my best chance for that!

rollick, who uses that office for eBay sales, has written up some of its uncharming quirks in the past. monshu himself is full of stories, which he told at lunch today. I figured that, on the one hand, the people running the show won't be the regular staff, but, on the other, they'll still be postal employees. Plus, this is Uptown, which guarantees a Tower of United Nations Babel for applicants. I braced for the worst; monshu told me to call him on my yakphone when I was finished and we could do some oriental shopping. I'd be there an hour or so before the scheduled noontime start. Maybe I'd call him at 12:05, maybe at 1 p.m.

More like 1:30.

It was exactly the confused mess I imagined. I got into line, was handed a form by one of the several women circulating and yelling directions at the mass, and sat down to fill it in. When I went back, I found that the line had been split into two at the middle, one half pointed south and the other curling around the north side of the room. The southern line looked shorted, so I jumped in between an Ethiopian man and a kind and chatty Pilipina heading to Okinawa. Young screechy children were darting in and out among the crowd and a Slavic man kept moving back an forth in front of the wickets, barking tidbits of information to his peeps in the north line.

We were standing near an entrance and unsuspecting postal customers kept arriving, surveying the scene, and wondering where the hell they had to go to pick up packages. There were, of course, no signs anywhere; they just had to figure out that the method was to duck under the cordon and jump into a third line. Meanwhile, an employee figured out that the elderly German couple near me were renewing passports and decided to begin another line just for renewals.

She also told the Pilipina that, yes, she needed to fill in her entire name on the form. "It won't fit!" she complained. "What is it?" I asked. "Maria Concepcion Alvarez Torres Glaestner. I never use the whole thing." The Ethiopian shook his head and a man in front of him said, "Maybe you should get a passport for each name!" "I tried that!" she replied, "They wouldn't let me!" Then he turned to me and said, "Aren't you at SAAS Sheridan?" "Yeah," I said. "I'm in your building. You're in BLL? I'm across the hall." "Bruce, right?" I said and introduced myself.

We've had our suspicions about Mr Bruce for years. (In his fifties, lives alone, blasts showtunes. As Nathan Lane said, "You do the math." Oh, and receives twice-weekly visits from attractive young men.) He confessed that he had expected the affair to be much better organised and I mocked him for his pollyannism. While we were chatting, word came through that the photographer on the premises had no film. I had photos already, but he didn't. The Ethiopian man recommended a photographer up the street and I promised Bruce I'd hold his place in line. "Don't worry," said the man, "we won't be moving anywhere."

And we didn't, for half an hour. People were streaming into both ends of the room and a tall pompadoured, goatteed hipster with a dressed-down Asian girlfriend complained that they were pushing ahead of our line. We did eventually start moving. I was following the progress of a chubby hispanic cutey called to the long green-covered table in the middle of the hall when I noticed stuttering forward movement. A reporter and cameraman had arrived and were shadowing a young hispanic woman. I noticed another, hispanic cameraman sitting near the door; after we drew closer, he took some footage of the darling baby in the arms of a buxom mestizo woman who was grabbing at my bag and shirtback.

He turned out to be associated with, of all channels, 28--Korean Broadcasting. A Korean reporter was interviewing two ancient Korean men who were a bit ahead of us. By the time Bruce made it back, they had reached the payment window. A woman was trying to bring order to the queue as people were pressing against the central counter in a deepening semicircle. She asked two hispanic men to stand to one side. The hipster complained about the cutting in line and she asked him to follow her to another window. "I recognise him," she said, "because he's tall. He's been here a long time." The Ethiopian tagged along.

Bruce and I got our money orders and found ourselves behind the semicircular mass. I spotted the cutey I'd been following before; he was at the front, still waiting to be taken. I commented on this to Bruce, and he decided to talk to the woman who had taken the hipster. He waved me over and I found her trying to explain to the dottering halabonim that they needed new photos, not old ones. But she did find someone to process our orders. The poor men directed to one side and forgotten must've followed our progress, since one of them appeared at my elbow. The stapler died on Bruce's application and this woman left in search of another. Meanwhile, I described our plans for the afternoon and invited him along. "I'll wait outside for you," he said. The woman returned, started my application, wandered off again, answered a lot of questions, and came back.

The actual processing took only a moment or two. I handed over my application, old passport, and two photos and swore an oath. She made a few marks and stuffed it in an envelope. Outside, I found Bruce waiting on the steps. I called monshu and arranged to meet at Pho Hoa. Over soup, we talked about condo associations, Bruce's Catholic upbringing, cooking dinner (which he never does), and an intriguing play at Balliwick on Boston's molestation crisis. Then we dragged him over to Tai Nam for show-and-tell. There's nothing in the world like showing someone their first frozen durian!

Bruce watched bemused as monshu picked up ingredients for master sauce and I bought crazy, wrong foods, plus a gift for welcomerain. We parted on the street. I told him, "If you ever need a break in your routine, knock on the door!"

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[welcomerain.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Gift for meeeeee!