Sometimes my life is a carefree rendition of Beauty and the Beast, where I ride my antique bike around Toulouse amongst the townspeople who wish me "Bonjour!" by name, filling my basket with fresh produce along streets that run with wine. OK, maybe not that last bit, but the rest.
And sometimes my life is a paperwork/immigration/bureaucratic inferno, like today. It all really started before the vacation, when I realized that the problem that I had never received my social security card last year had not resolved itself in my summer absence. Then, over the vacation I got a call from my cell phone company that they were missing a signature on some form asking me if I couldn't just breeze back over (for a third time) s'il vous plait and merci. Then, upon returning from farming, I found a letter waiting for me from my friends at the Office of Immigration. Inside there was all the paperwork I had carefully filled out, photocopied, and sent by registered mail to ensure it arrived weeks ago, along with a letter saying they regretted to inform me that my request to validate my visa had been denied. Something to do with the fact that I had already done that the previous year, and they "invited" me to please take a "rendez-vous" at the Prefecture. Finally my friend Helen left her computer charger when she came to visit and needed it overnighted, so the post office was tacked onto my list too.
So, that is how, this afternoon, I found myself with a daunting to-do list incuding: the post office, the Prefecture, the MGEN office of social security, the bank, and the cell phone store. Now, to any American this might seem like a busy afternoon of errands and "running around." However here, in France, it is much more than that, and it's not because I don't have a car, or an unlimited cell phone plan to call these places ahead, or that this isn't my first language. Ça fait rien. No, it's that the French foncionnaires, or civil servants, are among the most miserables ever sit behind a desk. Ask anyone. I promise.
So, me: experienced enough to know the nightmare of what I was in for, yet not experienced enough to have left it all for the same day. Merde.
I started at the Prefecture, which is basically a place where general administration for the region is directed, because it was sure to be the most hellacious. I arrived at 2:45 and saw on the door that they closed at 3:00. (In fact I have a theory that there is a direct correlation between how miserable the workers are and short the hours are.) Immediately upon entering the room I felt my impending bad mood intensify. I could feel the crushed dreams, the wasted hours, days, years people had spent there as I looked at dispirited souls half-heartedly knitting, pawing old newspapers, and trying to keep restless kids in check. I edged my way up to the information desk and began explaining why I found myself there, in the dregs of French bureaucracy. I lasted about 3 seconds before I was cut off by the woman facing me, "What is your question?" I pushed the letter I had received forward. the woman didn't even lower her eyes but pointed ominously further down the hallway to a sole ticket machine amongst a crowd of poor souls slumped in folding chairs or leaning against the wall for support. She added, "Since there's not too many people there, you still have time to go ahead and take a ticket." Not too many people??? I didn't want to see the other waiting areas. Maybe they included the bodies that had perished there in their count too.
I walked over, pushed the button and received my ticket: Number 547. Hour: 2:47. People in front of you: 55.
I looked up, saw the 110 eyes staring at me, sizing up what I was made of. I laughed out loud. Then left.
Maybe tomorrow.
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