Catch 22

Yeah. Jesus. The United States Customs & Border Protection Agency honestly do not fuck about, when it gets down to it. There is not really very much of the whole give-and-take with them. They are, I must advise, Quite Fucking Serious People.


So I spent most of today trying to complete a number of documents to their requirements. I don't really enjoy this sort of shit; I wasn't born into this world with the soul of a clerk, and I don't really get a hard-on from being shouted at, therefore Me and They do not mix all that well.


Anyway. I'll spare you the unutterably fucking boring details, but suffice to say I'm having a diseased dog's rancid cock of a day. I think, I hope, that I have finally got these manifold documents into some sort of condition whereby I won't end up in Guantanamo or wherever it is They put people that make mistakes on official documents, and I am now missing only one vital piece of information.

Here's me : "What's our contract number?"

The Boss : "You should have it."

Here's me, tetchy : "If you recall, you wouldn't tell me it, because after three and a half years, you still don't trust me."

The Boss, slightly cowed : "I'll look it up"

Some time passes, during which I work my bollocks off in a state that is honestly rapidly approaching abject terror while she watches Meatloaf videos on Youtube with the sound off - true story - anyway - an hour later the threat of late delivery of documents looms over me like a starry stripey eagle with rabies -

Here's me : "Did you find that contract number? I can't send these documents until I have it and the deadline is approaching in terms of minutes."

This is my life.

The Boss : "I told you it."

Here's me, rising : "You did not."

The Boss : "I did so. I said it out loud."

And it's ending one minute at a time.


In the middle of an hour of random mutterings, questions, bizarre expletives, I actually believe she probably did say it, too, in the midst of this, but seriously, in the middle of this lunatic stream of conciousness, I am expected to both recognise and remember a particular four-digit-number, bearing in mind The Boss has not really grasped the concept of "tone of voice" as it relates to "context of conversation"? Get fucked, hey? What do you reckon?

Here's me : "I must have missed it. Can you tell me again?"

The Boss : "I TOLD YOU ALREADY!"

Here's me : "And yet I do not know. Please tell me."

The Boss : "I'M NOT TELLING YOU AGAIN!"

Here's me : "Very well. They will fine us a huge amount if I don't submit this before open-of-business at Houston."

The Boss : "YOU ARE WASTING MY TIME!"

Here's me, with an internal fucking rupture happening : "If you don't tell me this reference right now we are fucked."

The Boss : "YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE SAME INFORMATION AS ME!"

Boom.

Here's me : "I COULD SAY THE SAME FUCKING THING EVERY TIME YOU ASK ME FOR A SPEC OR AN EXCHANGE RATE OR DIMENSIONS OR THE MEANING OF A GODDAMN WORD I MEAN I swear to fuck information? Inforfuckingmation? The fucking google is available on your fucking computer just as fucking much as on mine and I spend half of my fucking life trying to fucking help you out and now I ask for one goddamn fucking number and it's a problem? This is FUCKED! Our relationship is FUCKED! WE ARE FUCKED! THIS IS A FUCKING FUCK UP! WE ARE A FUCKING UNEQUAL YOLK, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

And now she is not talking to me, again, and the atmosphere in here is absolutely fucking stinking, but I have to go to England on business once again in the morning so she can frankly just fucking sit there and stew.


See y'all when I get back.



FUCK.