Next, please!

I did imagine the worst case scenario. This is what neurotics do, writers as well. I pictured the immigration interview taking place in a back room, across a desk, with a wilting fern in one corner and maybe a framed picture of George W. on the wall. I made sure my wife understood me. "If they ask you for your political views, vis a vis the situation in Iraq, for instance, I want to know, because I've already got the letter to my Congressman started."

But the interview took place at a window, the same window where I dropped off my forms back in July, and after three minutes, it was raise your right hand and do you swear and affirm -- blah, blah, blah -- and you can expect your visa in a week or two.

In other words, she passed the terrorist test, and we scored well in anti-fraud, and somewhere near the four-month mark of our marriage, we should start living with each other under the same roof.

There were seven others with her at the embassy Tuesday morning, including three men, one of whom was trying to get to the US of A on a fiance visa. The two other men were married, as were the two other young women alongside my wife. That left two older women, one of whom was trying to get to the US on an immigrant's visa, because she'd been denied already for a tourist's visa and she'd like to see her son, a Russian living in the US for 20 years.

We may like to recite the words on the Statue of Liberty -- Bring us your tired, your poor -- but we sure as hell don't live by them, and haven't for god knows how many years. I hope you don't buy into the fantasy. It's just wrong-headed.

What'd they ask my wife? Just what The Ranger, in the comments of the post below, said they would. How'd you meet, when you'd get married, and do you have any pictures? My wife didn't even get to finish telling the lady the charming story of how we had a mutual friend in Davis, one who'd put my wife up while she was there on a business internship and invited me to dinner when I'd called to return a book. "She said, okay, that's enough," my wife told me, and the interview quickly moved on to the pictures. "I have more," my wife quickly put in. But apparently our New Year's trip to Kiev was enough, because then it was on toRaise your right hand and Do you swear and affirm that all the information included in these documents is true and correct ...

Now let's just hope Old Lady #1 gets to visit her son.