duck-shaped pain

When I called them the other day to find out when they were open, I got someone very, very stern. Who talked with a lot of emphasis. "WE are ONLY open between 9 and 11 on MONDAYS through THURSDAYS. You MUST have an APPOINTMENT. Do not BE LATE." Then they went on to describe what I would need to bring, and then asked, fairly nicely, if I knew how to find their office.

"Oh yeah," I replied, "I used to work in the building across the street from you."

Which did not register, at all, apparently. "Well, first you take SPEER BOULEVARD, and then you DRIVE down it to the AURARIA PARKWAY, which is a tricky street to find. [1] Then WE are LOCATED at the intersection of 11th and AURARIA PARKWAY. Be sure to write this down: 1123 AURARIA PARKWAY. DO NOT park in the lot. DO NOT park at the metered spots. Park in THE ALLEY. Be careful to find THE RIGHT BUILDING. Many get CONFUSED and LOST." [2]

So I drove downtown, making sure not to get CONFUSED and LOST. I needed to go harangue the records department at Metro State (who has taken two requests to send transcripts to my new school and so far have mailed out zero transcripts), so I parked at the Tivoli (900 Auraria Parkway), which was equidistant between my two errands. The records people were nice, if clueless. I filled out an official transcript request form, which may or may not get the job done. Then I walked over to the consulate.

I was preparing to meet the person I had talked to on the phone � wondering if I was to be ordered around for about twenty minutes in order to get my visa. But what I got was the aforementioned perky blonde woman. "Oh, hello."

I gave her my passport and photos and the required form. She whistles as she staped the photos to the form and then got an impressive set of rubber stamps out of her desk. She stamped and wrote and stamped again in my passport, and then stamped some pieces of paper. "Okay, here's your visa."

Already? My guidebook warned me that it could take up to three days to get a visa from one of the US consulates. The Thai embassy web page said it took about two days if you applied for one in person. Which is why I had taken both Thursday and Friday off of work to come to Denver. But less than 2 minutes after I came in the door, I had my visa.

"Oh, we're not real busy right now," she said. "No one's come in to get a visa lately. Have a nice day."

So I had my goal, the thing I had come all the way over here for. Now I had two, possibly four days to mess around. How would I cope?

[1] Only if you consider a street which has its own exit off the interstate to be "tricky to find."

[2] There are maybe four, five buildings tops on Auraria Parkway, since it's only about three blocks long before it turns into Market Street. One of those buildings is the Pepsi Center � obviously not an office building. It would be hard to get lost.

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