Clark Griswold'ing

Korea just won't let me breathe easy until I'm there.  And even then I hear the air is pretty polluted (ba doop chhh).

I am jokey-jokey now, but this wasn't the case yesterday evening and all night.  I've had multiple Clark Griswold-esque meltdowns in the past 16 hours:




Praise Marty Moose, indeed.

After checking the tracking number online for those hard earned and patiently awaited (debatable) visa documents my recruiter was supposed to receive two days ago, I was told they were MIA.  G-o-n-e.  Never arrived, nowhere to be found.  That's something like $300 worth of documents and 4 months worth of time.  Fed Ex 24 hour service couldn't help me, nor did they seem to care that I was on the verge of suicide over it.  "That tracking number isn't in our system, we can't help you.  You'll have to contact the office you sent it from."

Since that office didn't open for 12 more hours, meltdown #1 of the evening was ignited:  Four months worth of waiting/worrying over this process imploded.  I cracked.  Tears were shed.  Ugly cry face activated.  All rationality made a quick exit out the window and dramatics entered.  Expletives everywhere.  All of this made the Fed Ex guy on the phone very uncomfortable.  So I hung up and helplessly wrote an angry email to Eagle Postal Center on Allen Street in Uptown Dallas (SO on blast) telling them to beware of my arrival the next day.  The wrath of Kate was coming.  My Clark Griswold was in full force.

Meltdown #2 occured when my recruiter reminded me (more than once) of the costs and losses the school would incur if I couldn't come to Korea.  I guess he couldn't sense that I was feeling bad enough already.  He and my boss then came up with this crazy loophole of a plan to get me to Korea anyway, re-routing me though a stint in Japan to get my visa there, then back to Korea, with Old Man Pops doing the legwork for new documents on this end in Dallas.  I mean.  Whaaat?  I don't want to go through Japan or for OMP to have to do any of this.

For lack of anything better to do but scream and pace wildly around the house, I dug through two bags of trash to find my receipt as if it was going to make any difference (it didn't).  Meltdown #3.  Then I showered because that was pretty gross.

I slept in 30 minute intervals for the rest of the night, imagining a cartoon image of my Fed Ex envelope going *poof* and trickling dust, planning my vengeance on the mailing center, wondering how to buy a gun and take this into my own hands, and asking myself all kinds of questions:  I sold my business for nothing?, I moved 20 miles north to suburbia to live with Old Man Pops for what?, Will Korea blacklist me?  Should I pick another country that doesn't require all this paperwork?  Should I just get up for breakfast now, I'm pretty hungry?

And then...!  At 5:45am, my phone blinked that trusty red 'you've got mail' light.  An email from my recruiter.  Could it be??  The package was found!  Somewhere in Korea, far from where it was supposed to be.  Korean detective work at its finest.

The God forsaken package is finally on its way now, making my '2 day priority shipping' more along the lines of '7 day stupid shipping.'  Come to find out, it has a totally different tracking number and everything is entered incorrectly (the city Incheon was spelled Ichcon), leading me to believe the guy who typed up the invoice is fully inept and the source of this whole mess.  Brace your britches, Eagle Postal Center on Allen Street in Uptown Dallas.  That wrath I emailed about is still coming. Probably with Old Man Pops in tow.  He didn't sleep either, being understandably concerned that I was going to off myself.

So, after a celebratory Skype session with my co-worker at 6am (you're welcome for that beaut of an early morning sight, new friend), I am relieved the debacle is over, though still totally mentally disturbed over the whole thing.  That was a lot of meltdown.  I am scary when I'm panicking.

I could climb a cactus with ease after this whole process.  One more month.