Going Postal on Homeland Security

.... or wishing that I could.

Our fingerprints are redone, but I feel that if the decision was up to the government, I would have made a 7 hour trip for nothing. The guy that we talked to didn’t understand why we were even there since our prints didn’t expire for 2 more months. I tried explaining to him that we needed them current for our court date which could be very close or after the expiration and that I wanted to allow plenty of time for the new document to be processed. He suggested that we come back in the beginning of May. I couldn’t control the tears anymore…. I looked at E and said, “So we have to come back down here…. I made this trip for nothing.” The guy then said, “Where did you come in from?” My answer, “Fairbanks.” He then sucked in his breath through his teeth and made a grimace that looked like he had just swallowed a bug. He said he would look into it and he would be right back. As soon as he walked out the door I started praying. E was pissed.

He came back a few minutes later and asked us to follow him, and we went to another room. A lady there said that she would try to figure out exactly what we needed. She looked us up in the ‘system’. She looked really confused… “Are you sure that you’ve had fingerprints done?” Ummm… E said, “Yeah, otherwise we wouldn’t have a piece of paper that says they are expiring.” So she asked for her supervisor. Long story short, evidently the way the orphan petition works is very different than the rest of the work they do with immigration and our prints weren’t even in the system. We had to pay to have our prints redone. No problem. Then she gave us our receipt and we went back to the print waiting room.

They took me in first and the guy was really friendly. I think I thanked him about 20 times. I said, “I only have one thing to say, someone in Fairbanks needs to get a digital machine. The city, the troopers, somebody.” He tries to defend himself by saying that they do have a portable unit and that they try to get up there about once a quarter. Well, that doesn’t really do me a lot of good. It’s just comical that people try to defend themselves and they really have no idea that it was just easier for me to just go down there instead of waiting for the next full moon on a Sunday for them to come to Fairbanks.

Anyway, they are redone and hopefully we will have the current 171-H between our trips though everyone I spoke to didn’t understand why it took 3 months for us to get the form the first time.

It’s really nice to have E home. Dani is the happiest that I have seen her in weeks. It kind of makes me feel like chopped liver.

I had a thought last week after church. It seems from what I have studied and heard Jesus was a very nontraditional man regarding the church. He didn’t give his sermons in temple, nor did he have, if any, rituals. As I was sitting in church, it occurred to me that church is nothing but ritual. There are always the songs, the offering, communion, and sermon with several prayers sprinkled throughout. I found it funny that we model our religion after such a man that went against the grain of the church, yet we stick to our rituals of worship every week.