My Nice Lady

So, my 7-minute meditation routine took a turn for the worst a couple of months back. Yeah, after the dreaded wait is over the officer obviously started getting the REJECTED message and I can see them panicking. I like to think it's because of my intimidating rapist look combined with the rejection message. So the new extended routine includes them picking up the phone and right away calling The Party Headquarters for guidance. Then they need to pass my name over the phone along with my other info so that this info can be prepared on a punch card and then fed to the Mainframe. Off course to make things more fun they pass my name letter by letter and they don't pronounce the letters they pick a name for EACH letter, military-style ......ah I almost feel I am at Guantanamo bay already.

As per my passport my full name has THIRTY-TWO letters, so yeah, it takes a while to pass my name. After a couple of exchanges on the phone, I get my passport back with a stamp. The annoying thing is that they are very rude, they don't say anything like: Sorry for the mix-up or We're sorry we have a crappy-ass Communist-era computer system or anything. So seeing this, I started giving them some attitude, like saying something in Arabic, waving my hands in the air or my all time favorite: the look. Yeah, giving them this look that says: I'm an Arab and I know people, does the name AlQaeda ring any bells, bitches?

After a couple of times, I made a deal with myself: since I am not planning on staying in this hellhole of a country any more (shhhhh it's a secret) I just shouldn't care any more and should take it lightly. So I started messing with the immigration officers, one time as I was coming in, after handing in the passport I told the officer: Hey, I think you'll need to call your pal to check my passport, it's going to take time, so I suggest you do it right away. The dude gave me this fuck-off look and then 2 mins he was embarrassed like hell as he picked up the phone to make the call. 1 point Fesh, 0 Frozen Wastelands.

Couple of days ago as I was coming back from Mancuria this lovely lady officer after completing the call, hands me my passport back and -in English- says: I am very sorry, I know you have to go thru this every time, all your documents are in order it's just that it's the process and we have to do it. Amazing how just a simple statement like this can automatically make you forget such an annoying situation, I am intrigued by my own fucked-up psyche.