Gazoo from Penn-Seal-Vahnya

So we made our way back into Mordor this morning, armed with four pink folders and a letter from the Bilkent rector. With any luck the Eye of Sauron would be gazing elsewhere and we could escape unscathed with our Precious residency permits.

Lizzie was up at 5:00, and out the door shortly thereafter, but such simple tactics don't work against necromantic bureaucracies. For every minute earlier you arrive at the Emniyet Müdürlüğü, the line is just that much longer. Fridays are the worst.

I again arrived later with the girls. We had a minor scare when our taxi driver took us way out of the way, in the wrong direction. When I reiterated our destination, he assured me this was the faster way. I didn't bother telling him the rate we ended up paying was way more than we'd paid the two previous times, but whatever, we got there.

When we found Lizzie she had already presented the letter and paid her application fee.

So far, so good. Step two of four was in the books.

The crowds were pushier today, more desperate. When we finally muscled our way to the counter, the chair was empty. The Man we had to see was nowhere to be found. I told the girls we'd just have to wait a little while and they gave me that wonderful preteen look that says "your word is worth nothing to me now."

People kept pushing, trying to dislodge us from our pole position. At one point, I felt pretty sure I was getting pick pocketed. Fortunately, I'd moved everything of value to my front pockets. In time, The Man appeared. The Man was in no hurry, and I didn't blame him. Honestly.

Lizzie explained that this was our third straight day of this. The Man couldn't care less.

He looked through my pink folder first. Lizzie's was already in the system somewhere. Every ten minutes or so a secretary would scurry through the room, carrying twenty pink folders, for deposit in some other wing of the building that I can only assume rivals in size the secret government depot at the end of the Raiders of the Lost Ark. He asked Lizzie a bunch of questions. She answered as best she could.

The Man said something was missing.

The Man said I had no proof of financial means.

Lizzie indicated our bank statement, with a healthy cash balance, thanks to a timely infusion from another grant Lizzie had earned. She said she was here on a Fulbright, which covered our housing, which came with a stipend.

The Man said, this is in English. And it's not enough money.

The Man said, I don't know what a Fulbright is. And your folder isn't here to prove it.

The Man said, in any case, that's your money. Where is his money? 

My eyes started twitching. Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill a Man" started looping through my head.

Lizzie and I have been married for eighteen years. We've had one, joint bank account that entire time. Hell, we had a shared bank account before we were married. Everything we have ever earned has been shared equally, and spent frugally. There is no her money, or my money. It is all our money.

The Man started talking about coming back another day, after getting our bank statement translated and notarized. Lizzie said, it's just a number. Look at the number. The Man said, it's not enough.

Lizzie took out her phone to call the Fulbright Office. In the meantime, the man flipped through my passport, which expires in November 2015. Technically, your passport has to be valid for six months beyond the date you leave a foreign country. It's a weird rule, but it's supposed to keep people from becoming undocumented wards of the state if their departure is delayed. We leave in June. Technically, my passport was a problem.

I braced myself for the worst. This was the end of the line.

Instead, The Man said, Pennsylvania. Only he pronounced it like Bela Lugosi saying Transylvania.

Penn-Seal-Vahnya.

He said it like it was the name of his first girlfriend. Like it conjured a sense memory of a long forgotten delicacy lovingly made--just for him--by his dead grandmother.

He was reading where I was born. He said it again. Penn-Seal-Vahnya. Suddenly I pictured The Man lying on a blanket under the fall foliage at Valley Forge. I pictured him sinking his teeth into his first cheesesteak. Running the steps of the art museum. Hell, I don't know, hugging Elmo at Sesame Place.

I have no idea what made him say it that way but from that moment forward The Man was playing on our team. The Ambassadors of Enmity had traded him to the Ambassadors of Compassion and for once a Philly fan had made out on the deal.

Sure, it still took a lengthy, haranguing phone call from our contact at the Fulbright Office. Sure, Lizzie will have to go back down there on Monday, for the fourth goddamn day in a row, with another letter from the Fulbright vouching for our financial health, and pay an exorbitant sum to initiate our application, but at least we have a stamped little piece a paper that says: A) They've seen the girls and won't have to again, and B) We started our application within the required 30 days.

My older brother Dan has a little guardian angel he has always called Kazoo. Origin myths in our family often amount to nothing more than someone saying something strangely or incorrectly one time (ask me some time about Spiegel, the Grimleys, Bvandals, or the Bears in the Woods). Kazoo has come through for us countless times. Yesterday, we discovered together that all this time he actually meant The Great Gazoo, that little green guy from the Flintstones. In any case, Dan emailed me to say he was sending Gazoo over to help. Gazoo from Penn-Seal-Vahnya.

Well, he got here, brother. He got here just in time.