Part 2
(If you haven't already, please read "Best Laid Plans," posted yesterday, before you read this -- just so you know what's going on). Who knew there would be a part two?
Today, Jim and I reached Ms. McKenzie by phone. What yesterday seemed incomprehensible turned out to be ever so simple. We had sent the request for the Limited License to the wrong department. We should have sent the application to the department that deals with licensure for psychologists, not for "mental health counselors" or "professional counselors." They are different. Aha.
Ms. McKenzie offered to connect us to the right department. She could not have been more accommodating. We thanked her and were connected without mishap and asked by some other very nice woman if we would like the papers that needed filling out and where we would like her to send them.
"My house," I said, and gave her the address.
Post-haste, she promised.
Case closed, just a little everyday snafu.
But, come to think of it, how come no one in the office to which we sent the application processed -- mentally, that is -- that it had come to the wrong place and then simply forwarded it on or maybe walked it over to the right place? (I'll bet they're in the same building, but that's just a wild guess).
Or, how come no one just wrote back: wrong application, wrong department. And how come the exceedingly pleasant Ms.McKenzie sent me yet another applicant form for the same license (wrong one?) for which I'd already applied; told me to fill it out (again... I had done it already); and in the next breath, informed me I'd been turned down when it came back all nice and notarized?
What, I wonder, in the land of bloody red tape, can possibly lie ahead?
Meanwhile, did I dare exchange words with a weeping, trembling, terrified, gaunt young woman, afraid of something, of everything, but unable to specify what, sure she's about to have a heart attack, now, any minute now, for months afraid to leave the house, lately afraid to leave her room? By dint of some heroic courage, she somehow came out today -- her mother persuaded her -- just to see the psychologist, just this once, just because she knew her life depended on it. Was I to turn my back on her for want of paperwork? What do you think?