How to get a US visa
Posted by Ruth on May 20th, 2010
photo by noborder network
To get into the US consulate and secure an American visa, you must fill out hundreds of pages of paper work, go through four lines, three waiting rooms, three metal detectors, two finger-printing machines and two interviews.
And then the real security test begins.
You have to watch this Walt Disney video:
And then you watch it over again.
And over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
There are no old editions of Woman’s Day or National Geographic to read. No sudoku puzzles. You cannot bring in your phone or iPod. There are no clocks. There is no bathroom.
Just chairs and a big plasma screen TV.
The video goes for seven-and-a-half minutes. Between two visits, we spent at least five hours in that waiting room.
Forget the danged fence, Arizona: this is why people are sneaking across your borders. They do not want to watch this video.
I can only imagine how many potential American visitors crack under the pressure and have to be carted back down to Australian soil to live out the rest of their days rocking back and forth in a chair, Ken Bruce-style, repeating: “Welcome… welcome… welcome…”
But we made it through. After hours of swelling orchestral music, sweeping panoramic views, cowboys riding across mountain ranges and wide, plastic, toothy grins from a politically correct checklist of multicultural American stereotypes, the US Department of Homeland Security realised they could not break us, and we were given the all clear.
Our flights are booked.
We’re just two weeks and an 18-hour plane trip away.
Then we arrive at US customs. And we get to watch the whole video again.
And over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…
