Oh the joys! You know I am ready to nail my own damn ass to the cross of French bureaucracy. To say this morning didn’t go well, that is like saying that the Titanic was a minor boating mishap. My morning went as follows:
Wake up at God o’clock. Say FUCK cause at that hour of the morning I have Tourettes Syndrome.
Lay there thinking to self that my two most hated words in the French language are carte de séjour ("de" is an ok word in my book though).
Frump about as crappy phone and phones crap no power battery mean there are no morning texts to wake me up with a smile. (dippy the shit stick here left the charger at work)
Say FUCK again; you know the Tourettes kicking in.
Get out of bed and get ready, note the memo- Tink should not dress herself in the mornings… If she should ever think that she can, you are all implored to remind her that she cannot.
Put the crown of thorns on… check!
Look through things to see if you have everything (and I MEAN EVERYTHING)
Drink your last bit of milk and … Check papers again.
Step out door to be on the way to hell (or prefecture whatever you want to call it)
Go back in and check everything again.
Take métro to prefecture, am there an hour early. Go me.
Say HOLY FUCK out loud, line is already AROUND the building.
Go look at buildings hours. Doors open at 9am
Look at convocation… my appointment is at 8:45am
WTF???
Wait in line and start reading Pride and Prejudice (you’d fuck up the socks at this hour in the morning)
Get lost in clusterfuck of a préfecture from hell.
Say FUCK. Cause if it isn't the being lost it is the Tourettes.
Find office and give them your papers
And the sit and wait for your turn to be called out.
Watch people before you be dealt with.
Watch people after you be dealt with.
Mutter FUCK and this is not right, repeatedly.
Wait two full hours before asking the lady who took my papers if this was normal.
Call lady a bitch under your breath after she snaps at you for no good reason.
Sit back down and have other people waiting notice that they are going ahead of me and lady sitting next to me shout how it is bullshit. I should start screaming she says…
Am PISSED as I have now just missed my waxing appointment that is in dire need! FUCK!!! That sucks.
Hear one of the lady’s say to the others they have now worked up to taking the 9:40 appointments.
Again my appointment was at 8:45… It is in fact 11:50
WHAT THE FUCK!!! FUCK THAT.
Go to a nicer looking lady who is doing nothing… ask her if this is normal.
Get bureaucratic confirmation that I am not normal (LIKE I needed THAT)
She tells me that my papers I handed the reception lady are now lost.
Hole in head, where are you??? I NEEEED YOOOOOUUU!!!!!
Nice lady says she will help me after she deals with her next person.
Next person takes and hour to deal with...
FUCK
Listen, do you hear that... my stomach is growling loud enough for the third world tapestry lady sitting next to me to think she should put her hand on my stomach and her other hand to her mouth. Sign language it makes the world go round.
Great I am hungry and it is almost lunch time.
FUCK I am going to be late getting into work…
Nice lady calls me over.
She looks at my contract, looks at my papers, looks at my visa…
Then she says no you don’t have the right to a carte de séjour.
We go back and forth a bit about this and my visa (a student one but one that looks like a tourist one and the fact that working for an international organisation does in fact give me this right)
She says she can't do anything but give me another appointment. Oh yeah and the person who told me I couldn’t leave the country until this meeting was wrong. But now… Now I can't leave the country.
She gives me an appointment at the end of August (after the current (but most likely will be extended) contract is over)
FUCK. Is this shit supposed to be entertaining. I mean I am laughing but is it funny?? NO. Those are not tears of laughter backing up my eye ducts.
Note this means I pay my sécu and taxes but cannot access the system. DUDE I need to go to the doctor, I need to do my annual checks, I need to get my teeth filled with white plastic! Theoretically I am to be covered retroactively. My trust in things like this though is built on quicksand.
I break the number one rule in France, I ask for the boss’s name.
I walk out of Bureau Six shaky and eyes welling up cause I do NOT know if I can keep doing this. Is someone trying to send me a signal??
Take métro to office and am pressed up like a sardine next to a person even I want a space bubble from.
Go to get money out of the ATM, ATM rejects card. I KNOW there is money in there, lots actually I have to make a nataional debt payment on Monday, but today there is money in there. Almost cry again and chide self for being stupid and crying over rejection from an ATM...
Get a sandwich finally as métro ride involved dizziness from no food and long ass fuck off wait.
Sit in office and tell people not to talk to me and not to pay any attention to me.
Think to self OK this sucks but you can get through today without crying in the office by looking forward to dinner at your favorite restaurant tonight for coworkers going away.
Open email, they changed the restaurant. FUUUUUUUCCCK, I don’t want to go to crappy Italian and I am already committed. Stupid shits who want to go to chi-chi places and can't get up off their asses to go out somewhere besides the every time place.
FUUUUUUUCCCK
Y’all (and I hate that word for the record) I am bruised and battered. We arent talking pink, we are talking all kinds of shades of purple to blue to black.
Try to find way to get spirits up so that 1. New boy doesn’t think I am more insane than I have already given cause to believe and 2. So that friend visiting this weekend doesn’t think I am more insane than he already knows me to be.
Again… with the bruised and battered- THAT is me. Want to crawl up under my desk in the fetal position with a bottle of vodka, cause really I want to be here and am starting to wonder if this isn’t something trying to tell me that I am not meant to be here.
That thought tramples out a little corner of my soul every time it appears… my soul is not ever inflatible.
Oh yeah and I get older in 2 weeks and my birthday gift, it is not a trip like I hoped (though I haev a very nice visitor coming in next week that kind of makes up for that), not an IPod Shuffle like I thought, nope it is fumigation. Birfday Fairy didn't read the memo that she need not sprinkle dust on me this year. Dumb Bitch, hope she rots in hell.
Yeah so ummm if you were looking for rainbows and puppies- they don’t live here. Sorry, will try to post something more positive on Monday.
Posted by Stinkerbell at June 17, 2005 12:52 PM | TrackBack