Blogcoven

Only once have I been in a situation so deeply, comically bad that I laughed. That was five years ago, at the Diplomatic Ball when my date contracted a nasty bout of food poisoning. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t think his plight was funny. It was a “laugh or cry” situation, and for whatever reason my brain went down the “laugh” route. This morning, upon receiving news of the packet of expensive and original documents, I had my second moment of laughter in the face of disaster.

In order to apply for the K3 visa, the applicant must report to the US embassy in the country in which the marriage took place and (s)he must bring all relevant documents. This includes, but is not limited to, application forms, medical records, police certs, marriage cert, birth certs of both the applicant and the US citizen spouse, and so on. (And a lot of money. Did I mention this is expensive?) Since the application process had to be initiated here with the petitions, I’d been managing all the paperwork. I’m pretty good with paperwork, having successfully defeated the IRS with a mountain of records to rival their own. I was not comfortable with parting with all our originals for this application process, but it was a necessary evil.

I was also deeply uncomfortable with entrusting all our originals to the US Postal Service, but it too was a necessary evil. Global Express mail costs $17 for an 8 ½ x 11 envelope with about fifteen sheets of paper. I felt secure in the knowledge that with such ridiculously expensive postage, my documents would be safe.

I was wrong.

The condition of the documents suggested that the entire thing had been dropped into the ocean and allowed to float to Ireland. The letter I’d written was gone, the ink washed away from the page and onto the rest of the documents in a Zenlike effacing of words carefully crafted to inspire as well as inform. The assorted sheets of paper, holding no intrinsic value but nonetheless expensive for their uniqueness and the official hands they had touched on their journey, were illegible and useless. The photographs were ruined. $17 and three weeks of patient waiting offered only deep, wounding disappointment, and my day unfolded before me in its true form. Rather than the contented ticking of intellectual activity, I was to pass the day traipsing across Pasadena begging new versions of statements, signatures, notarizations, and official documents from the appropriate parties.

In most cases, it was more complicated to get the statements the second time than it was the first.

In a few days replacement documents will come to me and I will put everything together once again and place it into the hands of someone who may acknowledge the importance of the envelope but won’t actually care that much. I thought about this today as I wandered the streets collecting signatures. If only there was a label you could put on an envelope. “Handle with Care. Original Documents. Do not bend, fold, staple, mutilate, bathe, lose, or steal. Not only are these important documents, they are required for a very important purpose. Please just take them where they need to go.”

Then I realized there is such a label. It says “FedEx.” I will use it this time.