17 February 2009

Passport to Nowhere

Here's the current visa application ordeal, in bullet points:

  • Got all the paperwork collected and colated and paperclipped and sent on 5 February.
  • Realised that I hadn't sent my passports in with said application on 6 February, ran to the post office and sent them on along after the application.
  • Got confirmation that the paperwork had arrived on 7 February but never got same for the passports.
  • Got passports returned on 8 February, but since I was working I couldn't sign for them so they were held by UPS until 9 February.
  • Spoke to the folks at the consulate on 8 February, assured them that once I had the passports in hand on 9 February I would overnight them so they would have the complete application on 10 February.
  • Was told that they don't hold applications (even though at the start of this conversation the man had called me to see if he should hold my application because my passports were not included and was I sending them on along?) and that I'd get the paperwork back by 10 February.
  • Cried, yelled, and threw things out of sheer frustration, exacerbated by not having seen my husband since 28 January.
  • Collected all my materials from UPS, got a certified check for another $12 so that they would send my materials back AGAIN, and sent everything off in the mail on 13 February.
  • Checked with the USPS employee when I sent all of this overnighted to make sure that even though it would arrive on Saturday, that they would still accept it? (I'm not paying almost $20 to send something to have it sent back, thank you.
  • Checked the tracking number on Saturday, 14 February after 12pm (guaranteed delivery time) to find THIS on the website:
Label/Receipt Number: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Status: Undeliverable as Addressed

Your item was undeliverable as addressed at 10:50 AM on February 14, 2009 in NEW YORK, NY 10022. It is being returned if appropriate information is available.
If anyone happens to see my sanity running around anywhere, could you please just step on it and hold it in place until this whole ordeal is over and I am where I should be, which is with my husband in England? Oh, and if you have any spare change lying around to help me get the dogs and Mills to England that would be great too.

Seriously...I have come closer to my absolute breaking point more times in the past month than I have in all my 37 years. And yet I go on, hoping against hope that they will try one more time to deliver it today before they send it back (not likely it will be overnighted BACK) and I have to get ugly at the post office.

I just want to point out, though, that it says that they will be returned IF appropriate information is available. IF. Appropriate information was available for it to be delivered (I copied the address directly from the website for the consulate) and it wasn't, so I'm having a mini panic attack that I may never see my passports again. And let's just don't even consider what waiting six weeks more for a new one before I can apply for the visa again will do to my ability to walk upright and use my prehensile thumb...

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