Writing Exercise 086

Hello again!

This week's writing exercise is a bit of a squib -- or a satirical reality, sadly, as I didn't even have to exaggerate much. Anyway, let's see what happened, shall we?

2017/08/03 – a normal day in the town of S.

In the quaint town of S. there lived a couple who wanted to get married. As he was working all day they decided his fiancée should go do the visits to the authorities.

First she went to the registry office of the city where she was born to get a copy of her register of births. She knew she could have done this online, but the office lady she had phoned beforehand had told her getting them personally was faster.

A few women were waiting in line, some pushing their perambulators, others having a quiet jaw. Then suddenly a man burst into the floor, clearly annoyed, spewing hateful words and accosting those who opposed him. It soon became clear he was a right-winged racist and wrongly deemed himself amongst foreigners. The situation soon got out of hand and it wouldn't have taken much more and he might have gone violent.

Luckily it was her turn at the office so she got out of there. The office lady however wondered: “You're not listed in the database. You sure that you're born here?” The fiancée affirmed the truth and implored to look again. Still nothing. So the office lady went to look at the old folders and pored over them until she finally found her. “So you do exist,” she smiled and made a copy. “By the way you could have requested these documents online.”

A bit stirred up she drove back to get the registration certificates from the Citizens Advice Bureau of the city of S.. The queue was quite short and she sat down in the waiting area. There was plenty time to get this over with and go to the registry office to call the banns.

However fifteen minutes passed and nothing happened. More people arrived at the Citizens Advice Bureau. Time and again the telephone rang, but no one appeared to take the call. And inside the office everything came to a standstill. Apparently the only printer didn't work.

More people came and others left as they were fed up with waiting. Adamantly she stayed and waited. Another fifteen minutes passed as someone was called to repair the printer. But that someone didn't succeed in fixing the problem and they had to call someone else. Indeed five people stood in front of the damnable printer and discussed what to do until someone had the idea to switch a cable and restart the printer. After three-quarters to an hour the printer finally worked again and she got her registration certificates. “Is the registry office still open?” she asked and the office lady of the Citizens Advice Bureau affirmed. “But you have to make an appointment first.”

That was why she was headed there in the first place, but she accepted the note with the phone number and tried to phone the registry office. No answer. So she went home and waited for the lunch break to end before she tried to call again. Still no answer, and neither in the Citizens Advice Bureau. So she wrote an email in the hope they might call her back. They didn't.

After five more futile calls she drove back to the municipal building and tried to make an appointment personally. But when she reached the registry office, there was a note that no one was there and one should make an appointment via phone. Annoyed she tried again to make a call, but no one answered. She knocked at the neighbouring office, but no one was there.

On the adjacent floor there was someone in his office, so she went there and asked for help. The man was nice enough to phone different departments in search for the lost registry office lady. “She must be somewhere. Others are looking for her, too. Please wait for her return,” he said and she thanked him and waited in front of the office.

Another half hour passed and no one showed up. She was about to go home when suddenly the door to the registry office opened. So the lady had been there all this time! “So you're here after all. I'd like to make an appointment to call the banns,” she exclaimed.

But the lady said: “Please make an appointment via phone.”

“I tried several times. But it didn't work. That's why I went here in the first place,” she huffed.

“Anyway, please wait. I'll be back,” the lady said and disappeared. Baffled she sat back down and waited again. Time was ticking and the closing time drew near. Just five minutes to closing time the lady appeared again. “I'm sorry, time's up.”

“I just want to make an appointment!” she exclaimed, annoyed.

“Well, alright,” the lady seemed affronted but bade her in. “What is this about?”

“I'd like to call the banns,” the troubled fiancée explained.

“I can give you an appointment for the 23^rd of October,” the lady conceded after leafing busily through her calendar.

“But that's in over two months! We don't want to get married on that day, we just want to call the banns,” she couldn't believe it.

“Listen, I'm very busy. That's how it is. Either take that date or come back next year.”

Begrudgingly she made that appointment and went home exhausted, only to find out later in the neighbouring town she could have called the banns on the very same day. But that was how life was like in the town of S., and no one said it'd be easy to get married, right?