weak heart
You're so cute when you're slurring your speechToday I went and waited in line for a passport. It only took 2 1/2 hours, which is not that bad considering that there was a fire drill that involved evacuating all the staff from the building.
But they're closing the bar and they want us to leave...
-death cab for cutie, crooked teeth
Passport office guy: "And what have you been doing since August 31st?"These government people are sneaky, internets. Why do they need to know what I've been doing since September 1st, anyway? I'll tell you: TO EMBARRASS ME.
Jocelyn: "I'm unemployed."
Passport office guy: "So write, 'Sept. 1 - present: unemployed.'"
Jocelyn [in head]: "But that's only 11 days! And three of them were a long weekend so really it's only 8 days! It's not like I am habitually unemployed, I just finished grad school and I'm looking for a job! I pay taxes, too! It's not like I'm going to try to sneak into the United States!"
Jocelyn [in real life]: "OK."
Unemployment aside, I find Canadian beaurocracy comforting. As I walked to the government building this morning, coffee in hand, book in bag, ready for some line-waitin', I was thinking about how great it is to live in a country where you know no bribe money will have to change hands in order to get travel documents. Although the woman at the desk was very stern with me when I told her I wanted to leave the country on Friday (and she called me by my first name, like an elementary school teacher: "Why did you leave this so long, Jocelyn?"), I didn't have to worry that my passport was going to cost anything different than the price posted on Passport Canada's website. (Although it actually worked out to be less, for some reason.) This heightened awareness of the lack of corruption in the Canadian government may have been due to the fact that my line-waitin' book was Sebastian Junger's Fire, a series of journalistic essays he wrote, and the essay I'd just finished was about Kosovo, and the one I was immersed in was about Cyprus. I bet getting a passport in Cyprus is a serious undertaking, and they don't have Tim Horton's there, so what coffee would they drink in line? (Seriously, the last bench closest to the door of the passport office was absolutely littered with Tim Horton's cups, which people had jettisoned as they were called into the office. T-Ho's should consider working this into one of their patriotic marketing campaigns: "Tim Horton's coffee: Official drink of the Passport Canada line." Because it's true.)
1 comment:
Weird. I don't remember having to tell them anything about my employment history when I last applied for a passport. Then again, I was still in high school. I think my passport may actually have expired, come to think of it. Bad news, if I ever decide I want to visit the homeland again anytime soon.
Either way, I do know that I got turned away at the American border at least once for being unemployed and broke. Give me a break, US border guards. Which country do you really think I'd rather be unemployed and broke in, if I had the choice!? Hint: one of them has socialized health care.
Not to try to scare you, though. I was trying to cross with an American (with whom I was rather friendly), and I may or may not have had pink hair at the time. Suspicious.
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