A trip to the immigration office with a sweating ham
Anyhow, today I got all dressed up, and when I say dressed up I mean in a nice skirt and a blouse… something I usually wouldn’t be caught dead in. But today was special, I suppose, because I was on my way to the local immigration office to get naturalized. And for those of you out there that are wondering what that means, because trust me I thought it was “neutralized” (like with baking soda… har har), it means that I am officially, certificate and all, a U.S. citizen.
For one thing, I wasn’t especially pleased to wake up at 6:00am when I had been turning and tossing all night. At one point, I actually made it off the bed and hit the floor with my shoulder… I can usually tell where the sides of my bed are. But we set off, my pa and I, in our tiny old Toyota Camry CE and started the 45 minute drive. Mum assured us that it was extremely simple to get to the office and printed several very specific maps to make sure that we wouldn’t get lost. Well, we did get lost. Typical, I know. I’ll skip over some of the finer parts, but after 40 minutes, pa started banging on the steering wheel, cursing his mouth off in Chinese (and wow, I did not know we had that many oh so pleasant words in our language) and screaming every 30 seconds, “WHERE IS DR. MERIDIAN”. He meant meridian drive… but apparently mistook the Dr. for doctor. During this whole crazy rampage, I sat quietly beside him in the front seat listening to my Zune and trying to ignore the death threats being thrown my way. Honestly, if he thinks he can still push me around like a little kid, do you really blame my cold relationship with him? Whatever, I’m still bitter from this morning, but I’ll get over it.
In the end, after pa got out of the car and yelled at 2 innocent passing people for directions… we were somewhat in the right direction. I have to give my thanks to the Spring Hill Marriott hotel for printing that lovely map… and giving pa a lollipop to placate his rage. Seriously… a pink bubble gum smelling lollipop.
Two hours later, I find myself sitting in the ceremony hall, where I can finally take the oath and be on my merry way. There’s this big policy there about how if there’s a mistake on your citizenship certificate, you have to catch it before you step outside the building. Well, even after pa made me look at my birth date and name 6 times, he insisted on taking a look himself. I thought this was quite funny, because just two days earlier, he turned to me and went “what are you, like 14?”… If there had been a mistake, I doubt he would have caught it. I think I know my own name and birthday thank you very much.
Well, I think it’s time for me to take a nice, long nap. My stomach still feels like it’s rammed up against my ribs. If I thought I was a bad driver, I finally know where I got it from… the porker that sat next to me all morning (thank goodness my lotion smells amazingly good, because I was using it to cover my nose the whole trip). Really, who stops in the middle of an instate highway?… Hopefully my ears will stop ringing from the many well deserved honks we got on the road.
Filed under: Blogroll / Posted on: Jul, 29Comments: 5
