Week 5: Karl's Horrible Day

Just to let everyone know, this is being written by Karl. Brittney wanted me to put a disclaimer saying that she's not responsible for what is said. Also, Not all Australians stink, but not a day goes by that you don't smell someone's body odor. They shower, but there's not a lot of deodorant used. If you want to skip the background information and go straight to the story feel free. It'll be marked with big bold words.

Here's a little background on my "Horrible Day" at the immigration office. I've been trying to get permission to work here since February 28th, the day Brittney started class. We were told to apply online to speed things up (as opposed to mailing in the application). So we did as we were told and every time I applied, we received a message saying that the service was temporarily unavailable. Unbeknownst to us we were supposed to tell the immigration department that Brittney had changed from a post-graduate diploma to a masters by course work. So we did that, and they told us that we were OK to apply online, but we had to wait 24 hours to let it get into the system. No worries (as they like to say here). Well, 72 hours go by and I still can't apply online. So with the help of a few people, we're told to mail in the application. Since I don't have a job and Brittney didn't have class, we had nothing else to do; so we brought the application down there ourselves. It was closing time and they told us they would take the application, but print out the message from the internet that we receive every time we try to apply. This is supposed to speed up the process from 30 days to 10 days. Again, I had nothing better to do on Monday, so I brought the papers down there myself. This is where my horrible day begins......

Story Time!!!

It was a beautifully crisp, autumn day. The 21st of March to be exact. It was about 68 degrees Fahrenheit and a good breeze coming in off of the bay. Brittney and I had just come out of the campus library after printing out the necessary forms needed to speed up my application process. It was nearly 11:00 am, and I made my way to the tram to go into the city. As I gave Brittney a kiss good-bye I realized that I hadn't eaten any breakfast. No worries, the last few times we were there, we hadn't been there longer than an hour or two.

The tram pulled up to my stop at 11:15 am, I took out my 2 hour ticket, and I was on my way to becoming part of the Australian working class. I arrived at the immigration office just before noon. I got my number (C 367), and I thought to myself, "I might be here a while." When I got into the next room, a number was called, "C 342." I thought to myself, alright, this won't be long at all. In about 20 minutes my number was called and I proceeded to the counter with our passports and the necessary papers. When I got to the woman, I told her about our situation and why I was there. She typed our passport numbers into the computer and said, "Everything looks good. I'll just need you to take another number (M 008) and speak to someone else." I was thinking that everything was going to be great. I had been there 20 minutes and I've already talked to one helpful person. I thought this was going to be a snap. About an hour later I was still sitting there with passports, papers and ticket in hand. It was now 1:00 pm and I still hadn't eaten since 7:00 last night. I thought, no problem this will just be a few minutes. I was only the 8th person of my letter group. As I sat there I began to understand what the letters and numbers represented. Each letter stood for something different. For example, C was for general questions, and M was for people seeking permission to work.

Another hour had passed and still I haven't even heard my letter called. I began to get antsy. A Greek family sat down behind me with a toddler and an infant in the stroller. All was well for about 15 minutes when the baby started screaming. It was the loudest scream I had ever heard from a 1 year old. To make matters worse, the mother began to yell at the little girl in the stroller to get her to stop. I still haven't eaten and my number hasn't been called. There was no where else for me to sit because this is the time of year that all students have to get there VISAS renewed. SUPER!!! Hungry Karl, a room full of smelly people, a baby screaming, and still my letter group hasn't been called.

3:00 pm: My letter has finally been called!!! "M 003."
"Not long now," I thought. About a half an hour later, "M 004."
Oh great, this'll only be another 8 hours before I'm called. But luckily for me, people got fed up with waiting. They must have had something better to do...Not me, I was going to sit there until I got my number called. At 4:05 pm, my number is finally called. With patience worn thin, I made my way to desk 17.

A very pretty woman in her late 20's sat behind her desk with a not so happy look on her face. I realized then that they closed at 4:00 pm, but what do I care, I had been sitting there starving for 4 hours while a baby screamed in my ear. I was going to get permission to work.
"Howya going?" she asked.
"Good, Good ."
"How can I help you today?"

So, I told her about our situation. I told her that we had been there several times, and that we were supposed to mail these papers in, and I just wanted to make sure everything was going to be taken care of. She looked at me with the most serious of faces and said, "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"
I was taken aback and very politely said, "Excuse me?"
She very smugly repeated, "What do you want me to do about it?"
In the calmest matter that I knew how and in a very soft voice I said, "How about your f$#king job you stupid b!&ch."

Totally thrown by my demeanor and what I just said she said, "PARDON!" and reached her hand slowly under the desk.

I stood up and shouted, "HOW ABOUT YOUR F*&KING JOB YOU STUPID B!%CH!!! I've been sitting in that God forsaken room for 4 hours and you have the gall to ask me what your supposed to do about it! Do your job! It's not my fault that you're not getting any at home, and you have to sit here all day!"

Just then a security guard comes around the corner. "Calm down, mate"

"I'm not your mate, and don't think about touching me. I've been here for 4 hours, and all I wanted was to get these papers processed."

He stayed pretty calm. At first, I didn't know why. Then, from the other direction, a giant of a man comes up behind me. I pretended as though I didn't see him, and I kept my focus on the little guy. I was so furious, and the first security guard knew it. As he reached slowly around his back, he began to scratch so I wouldn't be alarmed.

He said, "If we have any problems your going to have to deal with him." He nodded toward the mammoth. I looked back only for a second. The first guard quickly pulled out a tazer to restrain me. He lunged with full force, but I anticipated his move, quickly side stepped, and used his momentum to push him into the beast. They both went down. I grabbed my papers, spit on them, and ran back to the tram. I got on before any of the authorities could find me, and I made my way back home.

The problem was that I had already used up all of my time on my 2 hour ticket. I decided to try to ride for free. I almost made it back to the dorm, but 2 stops before campus, the tram was stopped by three men in the middle of the tracks. They weren't necessarily coming for me, but for anyone who hadn't swiped their card. I just happened to be one of those people. Luckily for me, I look Chinese and sound American. I just played dumb and swiped my card using another $3.10. I got off two stops later and walked back to the dorm alone and unproductive.

When I walked into my room 6 hours after I had left, I found Brittney on the bed with her had down reading instructions from an opened box that was on the floor. She looked up, her eyes were filled with tears, and she said, " I'm not ready to be a mother."

Tired and confused, I said, "What?" She held out her hand, and there it was...A pink circle. I didn't know exactly what this meant, but I had a pretty good idea. "Does this mean it's going to be a girl?"

The day ended and we've moved on with our lives. In a month, I'll be able to support us. And who knows; maybe we'll be able to make some money off of little Karla.

The End

As you probably guessed, not all of this is true. Brittney's not pregnant and I never fought security guards or yelled at the woman. But everything that the woman said, everything about the tram, and everything about the wait was 100% bonafide. Not only that, I nearly started a fire in the kitchen when trying to make home made pizza, and then I dumped half of the crust into the garbage can accidentally. Oh well, we're in Australia!! Land of the slow and home of the smelly.

Thanks for reading,

Karl

Also, make sure you look at our new pictures (they were posted yesterday); we'll have more when we get back from Tasmania.