Wed 15 Jun 2005
This morning, Husband and I drove down to Boston to get ‘printed at CIS (formerly INS, then briefly BCIS, but now the much improved, jauntier CIS). We’ve been printed before, of course, so we know the drill, but this being a winning combination of government bureaucracy and downtown Boston, we were expecting the worst. The drive downtown was the typical thrill-ride of confusing exits and unmarked streets (my theory: they took down the signs to confuse any infiltrating Germans in WWII and just haven’t gotten around to replacing them). But in a surprisingly short amount of time we had located on-street parking and were inside. This time, we weren’t forced to wait on line outside the building in freezing weather. The weather was still freezing, of course (it’s only mid-June, after all), but we were able to get on an indoor line.
The hall was filled with perhaps a hundred and fifty petitioners, standing in line or waiting patiently on benches. As I surveyed the multitude that had gotten there ahead of us, I marveled at the fact that neither of us had thought to bring any reading material. I mean, we are the kind of people who read through every meal, cup of coffee, and plane flight. We often bring two or more sections of the newspaper and a back-up book to the dinner table with us. Luckily, I had my computer with me, but Husband doubted that the government would have provided Wi-Fi.
I never got the chance to find out. After going through a brief triage, we were directed away from the huddled masses to a much shorter fingerprintees-only line. The line was so short that it could be accommodated in a row of 10 chairs. Every time the first person in line proceeded to an open fingerprint kiosk, the rest of us would stand up and move down a chair like so many Merv Griffin show guests. The line was moving pretty quickly, so every thirty seconds or so we had to stand, shift, sit. By the time Husband called I was the only person in line, and I felt silly, so I stayed put in the second chair. But one of the INS flunkeys sternly directed me to move over one. Since they are holding the fate of my future daughter in their supple little hands (from all the Cornhusker lotion!), I did so. Compliantly.
It took about fifteen minutes to print me. Prints are taken by pressing one’s oil-doused fingers on a glass plate of a special machine. The computer scans the plate and images your digits. I have wrinkled fingertips that don’t photograph well, hence the lengthy session. Is there a beauty cream for this? I sense a big untapped market: middle-aged adoptive parents, green-card applicants, and repeat offenders. “I used to be ashamed to get printed, but not any more!”
I was hoping to see my scanned prints being compared on-screen to a database of print images, CSI-style, with a flashing “Match! Match!” as they were matched to my existing set of prints in the same system, but apparently functionality was limited. Life is littered with such minor disappointments.