Down In Vaseline Alley, Where I Come From....

Today was “begin the security check” time.

Korea now requires that anyone who comes to work there pass drug/health/HIV tests and provide a criminal record check. I’ll talk about the why of this, soon. These aren’t particularly onerous requirements – anyone trying to teach in the United States from Korea will undergo a much more grueling visa process (US Embassies are routinely trashed in overseas riots, primarily because they are hotbeds of shitheaded bureaucrats, not because of their small, but obvious staff of CIA spies). But these requirements are brand new. This means that it is difficult to decipher what exactly is required. The government hasn’t figured it out completely, and the colleges are working from impenetrable texts on .gov websites.

A vague, but menacing email, from BPU gave me some hints and two websites to look at. I did look and discovered that I needed some special new kind of fingerprinting. Lo and behold (a pair closely elated to Frankincense and Myrhh, but not implicated in the two-by-four lynching of our Lord and Saviour) there was a gummint certified fingerprint joint right by my house. This is more synchronous than it might seem, as there are only a few of these joints per county.

So I head down there, with my vague email written by a Korean guy who speaks English as a second language. And the woman behind the counter is, of course, Indian (cow lover not buffalo killer) and cain't speak her a lick of English. We use a sort of pidgin communication system consisting of 7 shared words of English, gestures, threatening posture, and two actual pigeons, only one of which endured the ordeal. No communication ensued.

But I can point at the sign that says “fingerprint scans” and this works. Indira pulls out a laptop and what looks like a scanner for playing cards. The fingerprint scan begins with my two thumbs. Gunga Dinette rasps loudly, “fingers.. dry.”

At last! We have communicated.

I also now have an explanation of my increasingly delayed ejaculation when I masturbate.

In any case. Ms. Mumtaz Mahal then pulls out a vat of some kind of glop that even the most cracked out gay dude at The Ramrod wouldn’t use on a straight chick’s asshole. She peers into it’s septic center, scoops some out (with an instrument, because you can see there’s no way in Hell she’s gonna touch the stuff) and smears it over my hands.

We then spend 15 minutes trying to get fingerprints that don’t look like on oil-coated duck.

When, finally, the fingerprints are done. We have another non- conversation in which I randomly point at things on the screen (I chose “DOJ” and “Visa”) and then sent the form and my fingerprints off.

I suspect I have just enrolled in the National Guard and will shortly be deployed to Iraq.