10.21.00

room 1001, the sequel : october 21

It's been a very stressful two days and I am tired so my apologies to all you faithful readers for dropping by to visit but finding nothing to read. First off, if you haven't read Thursday's entry - do so now - I started on it earlier and then never quite finished it for posting before Friday. Oh well - that's the life of an online journaler I suppose. Just a word of warning, a long and rather bland account of my day ahead....profanity thrown in at no extra charge.

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If you were paying attention last week, you may have read that I needed to make a *nice trip* to the Immigration Naturalization Services sometime this week to take care of one lousy item for K. On Friday morning, we arrived at the INS building in lovely downtown LA around 6:00 am. We thought we were really smart by getting there when they opened. To our shock and horror, the line for the INS coiled around its massive building like a venomous cobra. What the fuck? It's only fucking 6:00 am and people are lining up like they're waiting for a free screw with Annabelle Chong or something. It was bitterly cold as we made our way in the dark to the end of the queue of probably a thousand people.

A sudden revelation..."This is not going to be a good day."

We stood there freezing our asses off for over 3 hours as we slowly trudged inch by inch closer to the entrance of the building aka Room 1001.

If you've never been to the INS building in Downtown LA - you probably can't imagine the horror without experiencing it. But as I stood there, I can't help but think that hell must be something like this. All of us people standing in line, floating in purgatory, in harsh weather conditions with no food nor drink and our bodies beyond exhaustion. Everyone's haggard faces looking for a gleam of hope to the bright lit doors of the interior. We stood there clutching our manila envelopes and our files - our ticket to the inside.

We finally got inside the building after 9:00 am where everyone had to surrender their food and drinks into a nearby food receptacle, where no doubt the security guards would later distribute amongst themselves. One of them hastily rummaged around through the contents to see what he would take home after work. Bastards. The security guards barked orders, in their accented English, at us as if we were in some refugee camp - living on their soil.

"If you are here to replace a lost or stolen Green Card, or if you are here to find out about your case status - all the tickets have been distributed today and you will not be served. Come back Monday and have a good weekend. However we still have tickets to serve those of you in regards to your Citizenship or if you need a Passport Endorsement."

You see, once you're inside, you have to go up to OBSTACLE 1: a counter where an agent will review what you want to do today and then give you a ticket according to your request. But by 9:00am that day, all Green Card inquiry tickets had already been distributed and they turned everyone who had been waiting since that morning away.

We got up to the counter after another 40 minutes wait inside and told the agent we needed a Passport Endorsement for K so he can travel outside of the US. We have been waiting for his Green Card for over 6 months but we have not received it yet, so all we needed was an INS stamp saying it's being processed and that he is a Green Card holder.

Simple? Shit, no...the INS never makes things easy:

"Sorry, you need ticket A and all of those are gone today. Come back Monday."

"Wait! You guys just announced that you are still doing Passport Endorsements today and that's all I need done. I'm not replacing a Green Card."

"I know what you need and you need an A Ticket. We don't have anymore today. Come back Monday."

"This lady next to you just said you guys are still doing Passport Endorsements."

"Don't tell me what my job is and what I need to do. I KNOW what you need and we can't help you today, come back Monday and get here around 1:30am to wait in line like the others do. First come, first serve."

The fucker wasn't going to help us and God knows how many other poor souls he turned away too. K was determined to get it done today so he waited for the lady at the next counter (since she helped him last time and he knew she was knowledgeable and helpful). I excused myself to the ladies' room to cool down - on my way there, I saw Mr. Fucker going on break. Probably going to check out the food receptacle no doubt.

Damn, they got nasty restrooms in there. Is it because they think we're minorities, we don't use clean restrooms or something?? Huh??

I held my breath around the corner as K talked to the lady. All we needed was to get kicked out of there and having to come back on Monday again. Don't the INS know we take days off from work to do this shit?

K came around the corner with a ticket in hand.

*beam*

It was a B Ticket. What we needed all along was a B Ticket! K knew this lady would help - although she's all business, she's fair and she won't turn people away who are there for the right reasons.

OBSTACLE 2: We proceeded to the next part of the room where people waited to be helped on. In reality, it looked like a holding pen for lost souls. Weary lines etched deeper into the faces of these people as only half the battle was over. The longest wait was yet to come.

Aiyah...they were serving only B204! We were B237!! We were stopped at the entrance of this "holding pen" where we had another nice rapport with an INS security guard:

"Who's this ticket for?"

"My husband, but he doesn't speak English *wink wink* and so I need to be his translator."

"Only he can stay in here but you have to wait outside."

"But, he can't communicate with the agents at the counter!"

"Then you two can both wait outside until it's B235 and then you can come in together."

"................"

So we waited outside and we sat on the cold hard steps for another 3 hours until B234 rolled around and we went back in. Shit, another INS security guard was sitting at the gates of hell...

"I'm his wife and translator and we were told to come back when it's almost our turn."

"No, only he can go in."

"But he doesn't speak English."

"You don't need a translator here."

WTF?????? If you don't NEED a fuckin translator at the INS, where the fuck do you need one then? I can't imagine all the fuck ups that's happened to people because of dumb security guards like these guys.

"Ok, come back at 236 and then I'll let you both in."

Fuck it.

I pretended to talk to K in only Chinese and just told the security guard that he'll try it on his own, if he needs me, I'll wait outside.

237 lit up and K was at the counter for no more than 2 minutes before he was out the door.

Recap: 6 and a half hours, not counting having to wake up at 4:30am and drive out there....for a 2 minute process. Although I'm relieved it's done, I can't believe how the INS agents, who are predominantly minorities, treat other minorities SO SO SO poorly and with such disdain. If they don't like their job, then don't do it. Mr. Fucker was Filipino, Security Guard 1 was White, Security Guard 2 was Filipino. And the lady who helped us? She's Hispanic.

They have got to put a better system in the INS. Streamline something dammit! And what about Quality Control? Just because most of the customers at the Los Angeles INS are either Latinos or Asians, doesn't mean we're 2nd class citizens! Just because you work at the INS doesn't mean it gives you the right to treat others like crap. I'm just glad not everyone is like Mr. Fucker....if they were, why don't we just bring back the Chinese Exclusion Act and while we're at it, how bout some slavery too?

Yes, it was a very long day...

But that wasn't the end. We then headed on over to the Japanese Consulate in the heart of Downtown to apply for a travel visa for K. Finding buildings in Downtown just ain't easy...with all the one way streets, pedestrians and high rises looming overhead, I think I used up every profanity in the book before I found a place with decent parking rates and near where I needed to go. Of course if we didn't get that passport endorsement earlier in the day, we couldn't even apply for a damn visa to begin with. Luckily the Consulate office was pretty empty and the application was a breeze to fill out or else someone would have to pay.

By this point of my day, my eyes were burning from lack of sleep, my brain was malfunctioning, my body wanted to call it quits and well - it was an ugly sight. My throat was throbbing, my head was aching, my body decided to break into episodes of sweat due to the fluctuating temperatures....and we still had to trek another 5 blocks to TD Waterhouse to do some stuff.

Did I mention it was a very long day? And needless to say, I feel like shit today.

Anyway, I hope I don't need to go to the INS again for a few years...twice in one year is about as much as I can take without going postal.

And the moral of the story? Marry a US Citizen. :)

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In other news..

Thanks to Scott of Medea Sin for the mention!

As you can probably tell, I'm having a difficult time deciding what I want to do with my page in terms of the aesthetic element. I can't quite get it right and I'm not satisfied with the way it looks. Since the red background looked different on different monitors, I figured I'll just stick with this uniform "wine" color for the time being...say, until...tomorrow. ? .

Well I do have more to say but this is probably enough torture to put you through for one day, so I'll continue at another time.

I'm out.