It has taken me almost a full work week to recover enough to write this.
Monday, 7:48 a.m.: Applicant gets turned back from initial entry to the San Jose Immigration Field Office building and returns the three block walk to the car to put her cell phone in the trunk. Her error? Having taken at face value the sentence in the preparation document provided online: "No cell phones with cameras will be allowed in the building." New rule (no warning): no cell phones, period. Homeland security threat, apparently.
Monday, 7:56 a.m.: Applicant, a little sweaty from the jog back to the car, gets turned away from the door a second time. Her sin? Doofus Applicant thought she was setting up an appointment for October 15. However, she accidentally selected the October 22 box at the online "InfoPass" appointment setter-upper application now employed by the INS to make sure their vile foreigners show up in easily managed and appropriately spaced lots. This time it really was her error. But wait!
There's a guy who runs the coffee cart outside the building. In the entrepreneurial spirit upon which this Great Country was founded, he has also located a nearby electrical outlet, set up a laptop computer, and found a roaming internet connection. For a mere $5.50, he is willing to let the coffee stall mind itself and go online to see if he can re-book the "InfoPass" appointment on your behalf, real time, for that morning. (I was SO tempted to ask Mr. Heavily-Accented-Coffee/InfoPass Guy if he was a legal immigrant, but the irony of him NOT being so would have been just too much to bear.) Doofus App coughed up the cash and scored an appointment just 45 minutes in the future. But, given the dedication the INS has poured into properly pacing the whole icky immigrant flow (and who can blame them?), you can't get in the building any sooner than 15 minutes before your scheduled appointment. So, armed with the best coffee a split-focused coffee/internet service provider can provide and a Costco blueberry muffin as big as her head, courtesy of Mr. InfoPass and another $6.25, DA heads back to her car to read the paper and wait her turn.
Can you stand the tension? Stay tuned...
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