Red Tape

One thing that has been taking up much our time is trying to get all our paperwork together for our visas. You would think that it would be a simple, "Here is the list of documents you need to gather and here is where you send them."

Oh if it were only that easy.

Last week we headed down to Salem to get our FBI background checks apostilled. The conversation went something like this:

We need to get these documents notarized and apostilled. Can we do this here?

Sure no problem. Oh wait, these need to be notarized.

Yes, we know this and were hoping that you would notarize them.

Whoever sent you these documents should have notarized them.

Well, the FBI sent them to us and they don't notarize documents.

Well, we can't do it - they should have done it.

But the FBI doesn't notarize documents. . .

The rest is a long story . . . and included a visit to the local police department. . .and help from a lady on her smoke break. . . but finally. . . finally . . .we got what we needed.