Sounds like a simple task, doesn’t it? Our fingerprinting journey began last Wednesday when we drove to Florence (about an hour away) to go to the County Superior Court Clerk’s Office and to the Sheriff’s Office to get fingerprinted and start the court process. We soon learned that the Sheriff’s Office only fingerprints Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 8 am to 3:30 pm. We got to Florence at 4:15, right day wrong time, so no fingerprinting for us. I was a little frustrated because I had called and asked questions and no one at the Clerk’s Office brought this up, of course, it is partly my fault I did assume the Sheriff’s Office had the same hours as the Clerk’s Office, silly me. The trip wasn’t totally wasted we had a great dinner at some friends’ house and got to catch up with them.
I called the next day to see if we had to go back to Florence to get fingerprinted or if we could get fingerprinted here in town. I got the good news that yes we can get fingerprinted here in town and Matt wouldn’t have to go back to Florence to the Clerk’s Office with me. We got fingerprinted that day and I decided to call again and see if I could just mail them in and great news I could, but then she brought up something that no one had asked me for, yet. She thought I needed my case number. So, I had to leave a message with someone about that, and yep I never got a call back. So, now I don’t want to drive to Florence to find out if I do indeed need this case number and I cannot get anyone on the phone able to tell me what I need to do. This is now starting to frustrate me, not because I am not a patient person, but because this is one of those time sensitive things that takes a while to get processed, so of course I wanted it done and over with. Yesterday I made a few more calls to find out if I do indeed need a case number or can someone look up if I have one, but again I cannot get answers. I have given up at this point of getting anyone on the phone and decided I would drive to Florence on Wednesday and get some answers, but I got great news in Monday’s mail, our case number came from the County Attorney’s Office. Our prints for Pinal County will be in the mail today!
This is not our only fingerprinting adventure. We also had an appointment with INS over the weekend to get fingerprinted for immigration purposes. We have learned that INS uses the word appointment without much thought to it actually being an appointment. When we got our appointments in the mail, they were for 1 pm and 1:15 pm, so I thought hey they schedule them every 15 minutes this can’t be that bad. We got there at 12:45 and left at 2:20. Not too horribly long, for a government agency (it was a Saturday afternoon and we did have more fun things we could be doing but this was important), but it was seriously the most depressing office we have ever been in. There was nothing to read (so if you have to go take a book), no cell phones allowed, it is all blue (everything – chairs, paint, floor), the employees seemed depressed and not happy to be there, it was just not a great place to be, and I am glad it is over with.
I am not writing this post to complain, sorry if it seems that way. I just want everyone to be able to feel like they are apart of the process with us. I hope we can take you on our journey with us.