Today I had an appointment with the Department of Homeland Security. And yes, this was my second trip in two days for different appointments, thank you very much. After clearing security and getting through triage as usual, I sat alone in a large room (with capacity for about a hundred people) for two hours with no contact with anyone.

Just before noon, some employees came out of the door on their way to lunch when they looked at me quizzically and asked me what I was doing there. I replied that I had an appointment and had been directed to wait there. The employee said that she was the person in charge of handing appointments like the one I had, but that no one had informed her that anyone was waiting. So this means for two hours I completely wasted my time. Grar.

The one bit of icing on the cake is that after today, if everything went well (which it really should have) I won’t have to go back for another two years!