Skip to content


Green Card Day

Today Mr. P and I had the marriage interview to obtain his Green Card, the final step in a long road paved with lawyers, fees, and oodles of paperwork. At last, we would have an impartial government official to determine if our love is real or just a total fraud.

We met at our lawyer’s officer in downtown Boston so that she could accompany us to the interview at the nearby JFK Federal building. We followed her through security, and then to a mid-sized room filled with rows of well-padded seats that were less than a quarter occupied with other couples and their lawyers. Our lawyer had warned us repeatedly that we could be waiting for up to an hour, so imagine her shock when we were called 5 minutes later. “Fastest time in 6 years,” she swore.

The officer conducting our interview was a woman in her early 20s — probably in training, our lawyer told us later. She rifled through our stack of paperwork, made a few notes, then started questioning: “How and when did you meet? How and when did you start dating? Where did you go on your first date? When did you decide to make it exclusive?”

This last question stumped me. “It was always exclusive,” Mr. P declared, and we all laughed. I think the officer could sense a rapport between us, especially when I chided him for getting my birth year wrong. In any case, she then began reading off a laundry list of Yes-No questions for Mr. P about his illegal activities, like “Have you ever been arrested? Have you ever sold or trafficked drugs? Do you intend to practice polygamy? Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party or any totalitarian party?” I managed to withhold a quip about the French Fifth Republic.

Then she declared that she was approving his Green Card, and we all smiled. After 30 minutes of logistical paper work, we were out the door. What a great moment for America, to open her tenacious borders to accept this Frenchman who I so dearly love into her beacon-hand as a lawful permanent alien resident!

Posted in Existence.

Tagged with .