Blue 19? Blue 19!

Oh happy day. Today was Immigration and Naturalization day. Today I had my long awaited "biometrix" appointment to get the Married Name Change in the works for the Green Card. The promise of an appointment that may or may not be honoured, a long wait in line, a smelly neighbour, the issuing of a number.

I'm a bank account number, a Social Security number, a passport number, an Am Ex number, a Green Card number, a debit card number, a cell, home and fax number, a password number (the same one for everything, stupid, I know), I'm the 2nd child, the 1st girl (okay, the only girl), a Lot number, a Barnes and Noble number, Gap number Delta number and Target number.

And today, I was Blue 19.

Picture this: Three rows of chairs, eight wide, first two rows occupado, last row half full. Every time the person in the front row, first chair on the right, gets called as "NEXT!" we all have to snake down one chair. It is a little ridiculous dance much like doing a Canon in ballet.

Everyone!! Stand, stand stand, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, sit, sit, sit, cross legs, cross legs, cross legs. Pause for a minute and a quarter.

"NEXT!"

Una mas!

So after five sets of Canon...wait let me back up. Sash and E just went through this and they gave me the heads up that you can't have your cell phone with you and there is no reading material. I brought my teeny tiny miniature version of Much Ado About Nothing (it's red and looks like a bible complete with a red ribbon for marking where you left off). I felt a little weird with it but it kept me completely absorbed. Completely absorbed, so much so that I didn't register the three, count them, three people yelling my number.

BLUE 19? Blue 19! Blue. 19. Buh-lew 9 teen! After the five sets of Canon I was just mindlessly moving on automatic, reading my teeny tiny pages.

"There she is. Blue 19. Ma'am? They're calling your number."

Blue 19 got up and went the lady who needed a detailed explanation of maiden name, 1st married name and hoping to have second married name register before Death I Do Part. "Tanks," she says, "ju can go back to de chairsss and wait for dem to call ju for feengerpreenting." Right. Blue 19 gets up to go back to the chairs to find that she has missed out on four chair shuffles. Crap! Six musical chair sessions later, she calls me again.

"Jor Mohder's name? Jor Fahder's name? Addresssss? Okay. Ju can go back to de chairsss." A shuffle was taking place! And there was my chance. I went right back to the place I had been and squeezing in said to the chic next to me (meaning, the chic who needed to be behind me), "I'm just going to take the place where I was because they keep calling me out of line, and I'll pretty much be here forever if I have to keep going back to the end of the line." Big smile. "Thanks."

They didn't call Blue 19 out of line again. After they fingerprinted me (ooh, very Law & Order - I'm "in the system"), I reached the photograph portion of the deal. She was sweet and asked me if I wanted a "do-over" when my mug showed up on the computer screen. I looked like crap. Whatever. I gave her an unceremonious, "No."

I will look like crap until 2024 when I have to renew the pic.