Your Embassy at Work

I have been to the Consulate/Embassy.
You know how people on tv are in prison and a visitor comes to see them and they talk through a squawk box and thick glass?
You know how before they get to see the person they came to see, they are searched and everything including their lipstick is taken away.
Yeah? well that's the Consulate. It has a beautiful facade but the inside is some sort of bureaucratic hell.
Kafka was being kind.
And the guy was an condescending mean man, he literally talked to me like a child. He would interrupt me and try to figure out what I wanted without letting me tell him. Then he'd get angry because he had to listen to what I had to say. I always have to remind myself what tiny little people are with their tiny little dictatorships in their tiny little worlds. Here his is in Paris, in a dimly lit building, playing god while the city glows and shines outside without him. Ha! Life is actually beautiful.
After filling out a couple of forms and going back in line several more times, I was granted a $30 invoice, which, once I paid would entitle me to a notarized statement with the nice embossed stamp and embassy logo. Just the sort of thing that seems to be cherished in France.