You Be the Judge

Timing is everything.

I’m one of those people who don’t believe in coincidences. I believe things happen for a reason, that there’s divine intervention. I notice it happening all the time and that’s really the best part; when you realize it’s happening and know the reason why. 

But timing is involved. It’s everything. If you don’t have good timing, none of those things will manifest. Not a believer in this? Well let me tell you what happened many years ago and you can be the judge. 

Back in the late 90s, I decided to become a U.S. citizen. Believe it or not, I wasn’t born here. I know, it’s hard to believe because you can’t hear an accent when I speak… uh, write. But it’s because I’ve been here since I was three years old. 

Italy. 

That’s where I was born. I knew you were going to ask. 

I’m Italian to the bone, but without excessive body hair and I’m not a thief. Well, not anymore anyway. Uh yeah, that thing about being a thief… I’ll get to that momentarily. For now, I have to address two things: I realize I’m stereotyping Italians by saying they’re all hairy thieves, which is not very nice, so I won’t do that anymore. 

The other thing is, I’m not 100% Italian. My mom was British, so I’m half and half. Basically I can steal your wallet whilst drinking a cup of tea. Okay I’ll stop with the stereotyping, I won’t bash Italians anymore… 

….except to say the men are total womanizers

…and their soccer team likes to cheat

… and,  

Stop.

And they’re thieves.

Stop!

Okay….

….I have a lot to say about the British, too.

Stop!

Okay, okay I’ll stop.

Lemme tell you what happened:

I applied to get my American citizenship, which was a lot easier to do back then; you didn’t have to wait nearly as long as you do now. Then I waited… and waited… and it was taking a really long time to hear back from them; it had been at least two months. 

At that time, I was a waitress at a diner and one afternoon at work, I overheard a customer mention to his lunch companions he was a judge at the immigration office and I thought “Oh my God, this is perfect! He could probably help me with my case!”, so I walked over to his table, introduced myself, and briefly told him what my situation was. I asked him if he would be willing to push my case through since it was taking so long. He looked amused, then he responded: “Well, I’m a judge and it would be biased for me to do anything to help you with your case.” 

Then I felt really stupid. Of course he couldn’t do anything. But then he said: “I tell you what, give me your name and I can at least check to see where your case is in the process.” I handed him my pen to write my name down but he told me I would have to write it down for him because he was sight impaired. 

I should mention that when I was younger, I was gooood lookin’ baby. I mean, I was hot, and I realize that probably helped. Yes, I know he was sight impaired but he wasn’t so blind that he couldn’t see a hot blonde standing in front of him asking for a favor! Why is his sight impairment important? I’ll get to that. 

A short time after that, I got a letter from immigration with an appointment date. I was so excited, it was happening! But soon I would find out there was a slight problem, and it had to do with me being a thieving Italian. Oh, and I lied too. 

I lied about a little incident involving a lipstick I had stolen from a department store and getting arrested for it when I was a wily youth. When you apply for citizenship, you have to fill out all this paperwork and answer a lot of questions, and one of the questions was, had I ever been arrested? I replied, of course not. Me? Arrested? Never.

The reason why I denied it is because I had that information sealed. Here in California, if you have only one minor offense, you are given a choice as a one-time thing to have your record sealed so no one can ever find out about your little indiscretion, so of course I answered no on the application. But when I met with my caseworker at the immigration office he confronted me about it.

Shit.

How the heck did they find out about it if my record was supposedly sealed, is what I wanted to know? The answer: This is the government, dumbass. If they wanted information on me, they were gonna get it. This was awful. Now my application to become a lying, thieving American would be denied! 

I gulped. Then I calmly explained what I just told you, that I believed my record was sealed and no one could ever find out about it. I went on to say that it was really embarrassing because I was young and dumb and not that person anymore. 

After letting me sit in the hot seat for a moment, my case worker explained that it wouldn’t be a big deal, I could just write out an explanation of why I lied and he didn’t see a problem with me getting approved. He smiled a big, toothy grin and it was then that I realized I was in on it… wink, wink. Get it?

As I stepped out of the office and started down the hallway, guess who I ran into? Yep, The Judge. The one who was sight impaired. How did he know it was me walking towards him in the hall, and how did he know I would be there at that time?

He approached me with a big smile and we shook hands and he asked if everything went well and once again, I was in on it… wink, wink… and I said yes, it all went well and thank you so much for everything, I really appreciate it, blah, blah, blah!

If I hadn’t been at work that day and met The Judge and had the audacity to ask him to, you know, push my case through, and if he hadn’t set things up for my appointment ahead of time, well… 

Wink, wink… timing is everything.