If there's an easier way of doing things, it won't find me. For some reason, even if I don't intend it to be so, things and situations take a more complicated turn when I'm involved. It's that or the adik magic just finds me, singles me out, and sets me out on a different path than the one I intended to take.
A couple of months ago, Purple Turban and I decided it was time to go international and take the adik wave to Sweden. With almost minimal required documents, I filed for a Schengen VISA hoping against hope that the process will be hassle free. The application was simple enough. As soon as you get everything in order, you have to contact the call center and ask them to pick up everything and send it to Bangkok. Yes, Bangkok. Apparently, some dude in the Swedish government decided to shut down a couple of embassies all over the world since they cost money and one lucky country to have the Swedish embassy to pull out of it is the Philippines. Anyway. The call center agent I talked to reiterated the things I needed to submit and asked me if I had all of them. After confirming that I had the necessary documents, I asked if there was anything more I needed to do. He then told me that I needed to get a manager's cheque to pay for the application fee as well as print the "cheque lease form" that's just on their website. I looked for the link and found nothing, emailed the consulate in Manila and received no reply. It was annoying enough that I had to spend a lot of time looking for a link but it was really infuriating to be told to look for something that was not there. Going on psycho-stalker mode, I used a program, extracted the site's HTML codes as well as the CSS just to look for the anchor text that leads to that blasted "cheque lease form" and found nothing. The next day, the team leader of their call center calls me and apologizes. Apparently, the agent meant to say "checklist form" but stumbled on his long I's and short E's.
Fast forward to a couple of days after the application was submitted, another call from the center came.
Agent: Hi, mam. Is this
The Adik: Yes. What is this call about?
Agent: Mam, we'd just like to inform you that we received a letter...
(The Adik gasps and holds her breath in)
Agent: And it's not from you.
The Adik: ?!
Agent: We'd like to ask for the name of your guarantor.
The Adik: Okaaaaaaay...
Agent: Thank you mam. *hangs up*
The Adik: Whaaaaaa...?
With two strikes that had a couple of days' interval, the prospect of getting the approval in time seemed more unlikely as the days passed. Then, a two days before my birthday, they call me again. This time, I was prepared. If there was a non-sequitur question or statement, it would be dealt with by the use of logic and perhaps rhetoric.
Person: Hi mam. May ide-deliver pong documents galing sa Swedish embassy sa bahay nyo bukas. (Documents from the Swedish embassy will be delivered to your house tomorrow.) If you won't be home, just leave an authorization letter to the person who will receive it.
The Adik (stunned): Okay. *hangs up*
The day passes by and not one peep from Air21. I was thinking the worst especially since there was a storm that day. The day ended and there wasn't even a letter, a text, or an email to explain why they didn't deliver my document. The next day passed by without so much as an indication of what happened to my passport or the documents and I got really worried. Then, on my birthday, my friggin' birthday, Air21 called to tell me that our neighbor said that the address the delivery guy was looking for did not exist. My documents, were holed up in a cargo house somewhere in Paranaque City. Braving the storm and not caring about work, I flew to the airport area to retrieve my document.
As soon as I was out of the cargo house, I went in a cab, tore the envelope and looked at my passport.
I'm going to Europe.
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