At Least One Person Wishes I Weren't Dead

11:00 AM
The world seems to be made of paperwork.

11:05 AM
And I think I’ve filled out 80% of it in the last two hours. I think I might’ve signed away my soul in one of those papers.

11:07 AM
Why they need my name, address, and phone number written down fifty times is beyond me. Don’t they have computer systems that are supposed to cut down on this nonsense?

11:45 AM
I have been in this waiting room for longer than is healthy. I think the atoms in my bottom have rearranged to conform to this shockingly uncomfortable chair. Why do they make waiting room furniture so uncomfortable?

11:46 AM
Perhaps they hope it’ll make at least half the people in the waiting room just leave, and then they don’t have to deal with them. No wonder doctor’s waiting rooms are so miserable. They’re trying to whittle down their clientele.

11:57 AM
Water dispenser. Coffee dispenser. NO TEA DISPENSER. Why?

12:18 PM
I think I’ve broken a personal record of time-passed-without-drinking-tea. That’s including the time I spend sleeping between cups of tea.

12:21 PM
At last! They’re taking me to go see Mr. Yilmaz.

12:30 PM
…But not, apparently, to let him see me. We’re behind one of those big one-way window things, and he’s on the other side. He looks as though he died during the night and they reanimated him for a scientific experiment. The blazing fluorescent lighting isn’t helping, either. He looks older than ever.

12:45 PM
Well, can I go talk to him? I’ll ask this nice police officer…
No. I can’t. Why not?

12:53 PM
Enemy of the state, my foot. He wears patched tweed, for goodness’ sake. They ought to be arresting men like the one who pushed a bookshelf on me and lit it on fire.

1:45 PM
Finally! They’re letting me go talk to him in his cell.

2:09 PM
“Hello, Altan.” He looks even more dreadful close up. “You look dreadful.”
“I haven’t slept since they arrested me, Mrs. Evans.” He sounds awful, too, like he’s got asbestos stuck in his throat.
“Why not? Too worried to sleep? I’m sure they’ll let you out if you’re innocent.” Hint hint. Are you innocent? Now would be a good time to tell me if you’re a radical terrorist with strange religious compulsions.
“They haven’t put me in a room with a bed, Mrs. Evans. And I’ve been questioned every half hour.”
Good grief. How long has he been in here, anyways? “How long have they done that?”
“I don’t know. They took away my pocket watch that my father gave to me, and his father gave to him, and his father—“
This ought to prove it. Terrorists don’t cry. “Are you a terrorist?” There’s no harm in making sure.
“No! I just sell…I just sell coffee! For forty years, I sold coffee! I’ve been here since the ‘70s, and I never had any trouble until today…”

2:30 PM
So. Apparently he went to the airport to greet his Turkish brother, who was visiting for a week. His brother didn’t show up, and Altan was disappointed and wasn’t watching where he was going and he crashed his coffee cart into an airport officer and scalded the man with Turkish Coffee.

2:43 PM
Perhaps Turkish Coffee counts as an explosive device.

2:45 PM
Altan didn’t think that was funny.

4:00 PM
And now I’m waiting outside yet another office. Trying to convince someone important that the only thing Altan has terrorized is a can of coffee beans, which he boiled to death and fed to the masses of coffee-drinking zombies. On a related note, I still haven’t had any tea since 5:something this morning, and I think I’m twitching with withdrawal symptoms.

4:58 PM
It’s nearly five in the evening. Meaning, I have other things to do with my life than sit around waiting for some prissy government official to finish signing his name on a sheet of pointless paper before he can see me. The office door is just over there. I’ve been waiting for nearly two hours.

5:00 PM
There is only one small and rather air-headed secretary between me and that office door.

5:03 PM
Haha! I have made a dash for the door! The knob is unlocked! The element of surprise is on my side!
He certainly looks surprised.

5:04 PM
Fear me, for I am a tea-deprived librarian! The most fearsome of my species! Queen of books and therefore knowledge!
“What tyranny is this?!”
He appears to be unable to speak. Just as well.
“Why have you put an innocent man in chains, when many more wrongdoers deserving of such treatment roam free? Why haven’t you arrested men who fling bookshelves at old ladies? Does Mr. Yilmaz LOOK like a terrorist to you? He is sixty-five years old! He has been in the U.S. for nearly forty years, selling coffee at such a low price that he struggles to get by in the world! And you just had to make his life all the harder, didn’t you, you tyrant of the governmental system!”
“Ma’am, I—“
“Do not patronize me! Ah, yes, I see what you are! A nitwit! A cog in the merciless machine! A wooden-headed bureaucrat! Do you KNOW what is said about wooden-headedness, you tyrannical paperpusher?!”
“No, I—“
“In the mighty ageless words of Barbara Tuchman, or at least close to the mighty words of Barbara Tuchman, for I have not read her books in over a decade, ‘Wooden-headedness is the source of self-deception, and is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government!’”
“I really don’t see—“
“I SEE. I see your fault! Do you realize your self-deception?! You’ve arrested the first man who’s skin is the right color for a middle-eastern menace, and you have bunged him in a small room and performed sleep deprivation upon him and I SHALL TELL THE WORLD!”
“We’re just processing him like every other person we pick up for—“
“So this is not the first time you have made this mistake! I SEE. Do you know what else Barbara Tuchman says about people like you? ‘Wooden-headedness is the refusal to benefit from experience!’ How many other innocent coffee sellers have you waylaid as they went about their business?!”
Sam would have been proud of me.

5:10 PM
They’ve agreed to release Altan. And they’re very sorry. Hahahahaha.

5:15 PM
They’ve even paid for a taxi to take Altan and me home.

5:16 PM
And I got Altan’s pocket watch back. I think he’s in a state of shock.
“Mrs. Evans, you are a good and kindly spirit. I’m sorry that I said you’d come to haunt me. I wish that you were not dead!”
Well, that's very nice. But this is a belief I will have to break him of.