What’s Frustrating Part Deux

So you send in your application to get a visa for the country to which you intend to travel SEVERAL months in advance of your departure date.  You go over all components thoroughly to be sure no details are missed.  You send the appropriate amount of money for the application fee.  You insure and certify your package, as it contains your passport, which along with your visa is required for your trip.

One month before your departure, which would be several months AFTER you sent your packet, you receive a phone call indicating that the visa you applied for and the visa you were approved for are two different things.  The latter costs more, and you need to send more money in order to finish processing your application.  You immediately send more money as directed.

Two days before your departure, you receive your passport via certified mail, along with the original money order you sent and your original application.  You have no visa.  Your application has been denied because the person who called you up and told you to send more money did not talk to the people who process applications and let those people know that you’d sent additional funds, and so those people just put your stuff in the Express envelope you pre-paid for and sent it all back, knowing full well that you had only two days left before your departure date.  These people have no soul.  These people WILL burn in hell for all eternity.  This happens two days prior to your trip because, of course, though you got your crap together months in advance, the farging arzholes in government regulatory agencies do not do anything remotely in advance, so there is almost no hope of you having enough time to arrange a visa and still catch your original flight.  Is it possible that these people would pay the steep fee for you to change your ticket to another day?  Is it possible that anyone in the whole wide world gives a rat’s patoot about all this?  Is there anyone to whom you can appeal?  Or, is it much more likely that once again you are left wriggling under the thumb of an inefficient and all-powerful ridiculous government regulatory agency that is not held accountable to anyone, left without recourse, left without hope of restitution, left with several hundreds of dollars of penalties because you stupidly put the CORRECT departure date on your visa application, when everyone knows you should have lied and listed a departure date THREE MONTHS in advance if you wanted to have any hope of receiving your documents on time.  An added bonus?  The consulate in Miami doesn’t answer their phone.  Nor do they have an answering machine.  The phone just rings.  And rings.  And rings.  And rings.

Stay tuned for updates.  Frantic calls are ensuing as you read/I type.  Much profanity is being bitten back.  Tears of frustration are being lodged into an already tight and strained throat.  Plans are being made to possibly take the day off tomorrow and drive to Miami if necessary.  Our already boa-constrictor-squeezed-tight budget is squeaking like a frantic dying mouse under the pressure, and I’m starting to wonder if anyone would like to buy anything we own off of us, like, say, strained metaphors?  (going for only $100 a pop!)  How about a pair of really cute (and color coordinated!) animals?  My soul?  Would you like my soul, because I’ll sell it to you if only you promise me you can make the Brazilian embassy do what they’re supposed to do and get my husband out of this freaking country so he can come back in again before our child is born and possibly graduate with a PhD before our child is in college.  Thank you.