Fingerprints
Tuesday January 29, 2008 | 0 comments
Last weekend was quite a change from the normal routine at our house. For starters, Nathan was out of town, speaking at the Bible Tech conference in Seattle, WA with a co-worker. His whole family got together for the event and attended his session. His mom called afterwards, impressed, “He was so good, even I could follow and understand everything!” Good job, husband.
I was unable to attend because I had a very important appointment scheduled for me by the US government. I was to be fingerprinted and photographed for some paperwork I have had to file recently to renew my legal status. The date and time are set by the agency and, although it is possible to reschedule, it means the case is delayed and that’s not something I wanted to do this time around.
Last time I had to deal with this agency my paperwork got lost in the shuffle and I was jobless and driver’s license-less for 55 days. That was a very difficult time for us and I would prefer to never have to go through that again. I suppose I developed a certain degree of paranoia when it comes to dealing with this agency and I want to do everything I can on my end to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible.
So, with husband out of town and my limited knowledge of the huge city we now reside in, I was faced with a dilemma of finding this fingerprinting facility. I toyed with the idea of driving out there myself, but after a practice run that basically led nowhere I gave up and asked for help from the veteran city drivers.
Actually, my sweet co-worker offered to help and I took her up on her very generous offer. We made a fingerprinting party out of it despite the freezing rain advisory that was in effect that day (made me all the more thankful she agreed to drive).
Ultimately, I am glad I didn’t go by myself because the office is located in a bad part of town, in a strip mall, with very few identifying signs. In fact, most shops in that strip mall had metal bars on doors and windows. There were also some street vendors playing Tejano music. I felt like I was walking down the street in a small Venezuelan village. And believe me, it wasn’t as romantic as it sounds.
Fingerprinting itself was quite uneventful and quick. They use the same machines that local jails do for booking offenders. An interesting correlation. All in all, I am glad it’s done and thankful for wonderful co-workers who can take something as trivial as fingerprinting and turn it into a day at a spa. Well, almost.
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