Official Patience

 

Usually, when dealing with Spanish bureaucracy, the real pain starts when you are dealing with a person on the other side of the desk who asks you for a form, paper or document that you did not know that you had to have.  It turns out that this document (that you did not know that you had to have) is essential.  Is obviously essential.  Patently.  At least to the person sitting opposite you.  And their weary disbelief at your lack of appreciation for the missing piece of paper is palpable.  And nothing can or will be done until the paper is produced.

     Sometimes you have the document that is necessary, but you failed to bring a copy of that document and then things fall apart and the centre cannot hold and you have to depart and come back another day.  This actually happened to me.

     I hadn’t be asked to provide a copy of anything, so the demand for one came out of the blue somewhat.  And I reasoned that, if a copy was required then surely it would be simpler all round if the official opposite me made a copy on the photocopier that I could see in another part of the office. 

     So, I gently suggested, “Would it be possible for you to make a copy here?”

     “We are not a photocopy shop!”  I was told in disgust.

     I had to search around for a place to make a copy before I could return.

     Today, to be fair the major problem was not what happened in the office but how I got an appointment in the first place.

     To renew my residency document, I needed to make an appointment in the section of the police department specifically dealing with documentation for foreigners.  The appointments are made online and they are virtually impossible to get.  No matter how and when you try, you fail.  At first, you put the failure down to bad luck, but then after a couple of weeks of trying you begin to get just a little bit panicky because the expiry date on your card is getting closer.  But you’ve left plenty of time and so you try again, expanding the location of the offices that you can use.  And you fail.

     And your card expires and you are no further forward in getting an appointment.  Then your bank informs you that your residency card is no longer in date and that will effect your ability to have a working bank account!

     A desperate visit to the bank later and fears are partially assuaged by the dismissal by the teller of immanent rejection, assuring me that as long as I am making an effort to get it renewed there will be nothing to worry about.

     But I did worry and so decided to go to a lawyer or notary and pay if necessary.  The lawyers I spoke to were not encouraging, but one of them “had a friend” who might be able to help.  A phone call later and I was informed that an appointment could be provided at a cost of 100 euros.  For a supposedly free appointment.

     This “selling” of appointments is a recognized scandal, it was even featured on a television documentary a few days ago, and nothing is done.

     My 100-euro appointment was for the very precise time of 12.09 pm, a time I was to discover was more conceptual rather than related to temporal reality.  I arrived early, queued firstly in the wrong queue and was then redirected to another queue and had to pass through a metal detector, which I failed but was waved through by the young police officer and made my way down to the office that was going to deal with my application.

     My name was ticked off a list and I was given a numbered ticket which was some 30 numbers ahead of the number being dealt with.

     Despair gave way to the Kindle on my phone, and I was content. Apart from the fact that the person dealing with my case also seemed to be the fountain of documental wisdom and was consulted by all and sundry, my application was speedy.  And in spite of the traffic-filled roads on the way back, there were no real hold ups and as I may not have a new card yet, I do have a receipt that explains that one is on its way. 

     A result.  And we went for a menu del dia to celebrate!

 

Catch-45

The Zulus considered that the greatest honour that they could give to a person was never to mention his name.  I draw this information from my childhood reading of King Solomon’s Mines by Rider Haggard - a book, I might add that I heartily recommend, not for its implicit and explicit racism and colonial assumptions, but rather for some excellent characters like Gagool the witch and for being a damn good yarn.  I, and the greater part of the world, am not Zulu.  Never to mention a person’s name is not seen as an honour, but as a distinct mode of contempt.

I am adopting this approach to the Orange Holder of the Post of President of the United States.  That arrogant narcissist sets such store by his fabricated name (seemingly oblivious to the fact that, in English slang it means ‘fart’) that to deny its use is obviously hurtful to his thin-skinned sensibility.  From this time, onwards I will refer to him as ‘45’ (as the 45^th holder of his position) and I encourage all those thinking people who are offended by any or all of his spiteful pronouncements to join me in limiting the space given to his odious name.  You might look here about this attitude:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/the-power-of-not-saying-his-name/516483/

Thinking about the attitude of 45, I was reminded of the novel Catch-22 (which everyone in the world should read at least once) and in particular his resemblance to one character in that crushingly funny book, especially in Chapter 21, General Dreedle.

He is described as “a blunt, chunky, barrel-chested man . . . His nose was squat and red, and he had lumpy white, bunched-up eyelids circling his small gray eyes like haloes of bacon fat.”  He is also, coincidentally, accompanied by his son-in-law “That bastard” as he complains to everyone, “Everything he’s got he owes to me.  I made him, that lousy son of a bitch!  He hasn’t got brains enough to get ahead on his own.”

The parallels do not stop there.  One of the funniest-unfunny parts involving General Dreedle is when, during an army briefing the airmen start moaning with desire about the General’s astonishingly beautiful companion (!) until ordered into silence by the General, “his great, red domineering face . . . gnarled with perplexity and oaken with awesome resolution . . . his eyes glaring with disapproval”.  A hapless Major lets out an involuntary moan of frustration at something else entirely and the General’s response is to demand, “Take him out and shoot him.”

It is at this point that Colonel Moodus (the General’s son-in-law)

“stepped out diffidently toward General Dreedle with a sickly air of self-sacrifice.  ‘I think you’d better wait a minute, Dad,’ he suggested hesitantly.  ‘I don’t think you can shoot him.’

             General Dreedle was infuriated by his intervention.  ‘Who the hell says I can’t? he thundered pugnaciously in a voice loud enough to rattle the whole building.  Colonel Moodus, his face flushing with embarrassment, bent close to whisper into his ear.  ‘Why the hell can’t I? General Dreedle bellowed.  Colonel Moodus whispered some more.  ‘You mean I can’t shoot anyone I want to?’  General Dreedle demanded with uncompromising indignation.  He pricked up his ears with interest as Colonel Moodus continued whispering.  ‘Is that a fact?’ he inquired, his rage tamed by curiosity.”

Far be it from me to point out similarities between the bellowing of General Dreedle and 45’s fury at the interruption of his racist programme via presidential edict and his ranting against the judges who have a constitution role in the government of the country – but I think it holds. 

45 has no conception of the different strands of government and considers that his powers are directly linked to those of an emperor!  One only hopes that 45 will be restrained from testing his supposed powers to the breaking point!