Today, Kathleen and I visited the Application Support Center. No, we didn’t go to Dell customer support. It’s a nondescript unit in a mini-mall in the middle of the suburban shopping parking lot expanse that is the border between Naperville and Aurora. You wouldn’t know that it’s the INS until you’re safely inside the one-way-glass door.
Once inside, we filled out a couple of quick forms and were issued our service numbers, deli counter style. Both of our numbers were then immediately called. Talk about efficiency! At that point, the staff treated us to our second fingerprinting of this whole adoption process.
This fingerprinting is required for the naturalization process of our child. This makes it (once we’re approved and all) so that once we step back on to American soil with our child, he or she will immediately become a U.S. citizen.
The fingerprinting was mostly uneventful, though they did have a little trouble with my left pinky. It’s a little misshapen from a childhood accident. It was slammed in a door when I was three or so, and from the base of the fingernail or so up, it had to be sown back on. Kathleen was suitably horrified by this story, but I thought I had told her before. I guess there’s always more to learn about each other.
Additional observations from the wife:
-The “Ap” was burned out of the sign. So technically, we gave our fingerprints to the “plication Service Center.” You know, the nondescript building behind the Laz-Z-Boy store. It just reeked of patriotism.
-There’s maybe two people in the building besides employees when we entered. Yet, we were still each assigned a number ala the deli counter and were called immediately. Our Government, you’re awesome.
-So Brian comes back from his fingerprints and says “Everything went okay, but they had trouble with my pinky since it was reattached.” WHAT!?!?! I swear I’ve never heard this story before.
Perhaps this is something we could add to our marriage prep day… Have you ever had any of yourself surgically reattached?