Government Office...

We went to the NCIS CSI RBI USCIS and got our fingers printed and our I-600A renewed! It was interesting, since when we walked up to the door, the security guard opened the door and asked us what we wanted. Mr. Sarcasm was barely controlled. He wanted to ask, "yes, we're here with a bomb, is this a bad time?" But, logic and good sense got the better of me...maybe also because I did not really want to be put on my face and given a forceful colonoscopy with a Maglite and a can of pepperspray. Also, Cora would have then killed me shortly thereafter, and given the pepperspray, probably not soon enough. So we said we had an appointment to renew a document and went inside. They were nice. They were actually VERY nice and sped our appointment and our papers through. We gave our fingerprints and soon were on our way.

It was your typical government office: drab, hung with numerous informational papers, there was a small television on the wall that played CNN with a sign saying not to touch it or change the channel, The waiting room chairs all faced away from the lady in the window, warnings about what can and cannot be done, carried on your person, or brought to the office also hung on the wall. Most were unremarkable in english and only slightly more interesting in Spanish, especially since I tried to speak Spanish to Cora using the words on the signs.

One sign stood out. It was a banner. It was red, white, and, get this, blue with a flag. It said something about Homeland Security, and Citizenship and Imigration Services. That all made sense. At the bottom of this very pleasing 2 foot by 3 foot government office banner were three words. The first was Respect. I thought, yeah, that's good in an agency that works with people of all races. The second word was Integrity. Yeah, I thought to myself, that's another good one. It was the last word that gave me pause...Ingenuity. Ingenuity. That means they are good at making shit work. One further would assume this means they are good at making things they already have work better...If they are so ingenius, why don't they make fingerprints last forever? How about not hiding the fingerprint machine in something akin to Fort Knox? (Who came into the office with a machine gun that caused them to put up SO much security? Who came in with dynamite strapped to them and demanded to have a green card? Why SO MUCH SECURITY?) How about making the damned original document cost $2 instead of nearly $1000? Ingenuity...huh. I think, to quote Inigo Montoya, that word does not mean what they think it means.