Something Is Moving!

Today we found a fat envelope in our mailbox. It’s from the “Bevölkerungsamt der Stadt Zerneve”.

YES! It’s Serse’s birth certificate! It must be Serse’s birth certificate! FOR SURE it’s Serse’s birth certificate!

It’s not.

But allow me to build the suspense with a little preamble. Yesterday I decided to call the Zivilsthing office in order to get some updates about Serse’s birth dossier because it’s been, well, TOO LONG since we have sent all the documents, and we have heard NOTHING, ZERO, NADA about it. Yes, I use the old-fashioned phone, because life taught me that ALL EMAILS GET IGNORED OR PROCESSED WITH RIDICULOUS DELAY, especially in Switzerland where public offices are just slightly more modern than the ones powered by fax machines in Japan. Since I hate those people I was a bit late with my morning stuff, I decide to piss off whoever is on the other side of the phone by calling at 11:45, just before lunch break. The female voice is quiet and polite but has no news for me.

“Did you receive our legalized documents from Taiwan?”

“Sorry, I do not see them in our system.”

“Wait, you mean you did not RECEIVE the documents, or you received them but they haven’t been processed yet?”

“That’s a good question, I don’t know, I’m just at the call center.“

“Ehm… do you have a way to check please? I mean, I’d just like to know if those VERY IMPORTANT papers arrived safely or are stuck somewhere on a cargo ship in the middle of the Indian Ocean.”

“No, sorry, I guess you just have to wait. KTHXBYE.”

AYFKM? So what now?

Well, it looks like BY PURE COINCIDENCE they decided to send us this mail yesterday. It’s a fucking, absurdely pointless CONFIRMATION REQUEST. Basically:

Dear Fantasia family, please verify that your data here in these forms are correct and return the forms signed within 14 days using the included envelope. Please notice that wrong or false information will be prosecuted by a special war tribunal competent authorities.

Two observations:

1. The data is correct, including the names of Mei-Lin’s parents. This information was reported only on the Taiwanese papers, which means that MAYBE they arrived after all, BUT it is also possible that it’s just data that was forwarded to the Zivilsthing office by the Taipeioffice. We will never know.
2. There is a pre-filled response envelope attached. But it is not pre-stamped: “Bitte frankieren“.

AYFKM? CHEAP A**HOLES, THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS, IT’S EXACTLY LIKE WHEN YOU’RE EXECUTED IN COMMUNIST CHINA AND THEY INVOICE YOUR FAMILY FOR THE COST OF THE BULLET*.

We sent back the mail today as requested.

*yes, I know there is no reliable source to confirm whether this is an urban legend or not.