‘The Girl with Odd Socks’ – Lost in the Paper Shuffle.

I had to fill out a series of seemingly endless forms today. An experience common to all in Western culture, I expect. It’s never fun but I do try to find the humour in these things. It felt like I was trapped in an episode of Fawlty Towers that had suddenly taken an awkward Kafkaesque turn.

My frustration mounted rapidly, not helped by the shikker (drunk) behind me in line. Worse, the queues to get said forms were torturously long (of course), the civil servants were obsequious and inept (naturally – you would be too if everyone who stepped up to your counter had the wrong form), and the forms themselves were a peculiar maze of ambiguity and irrelevance. One asked about 3 completely unrelated possibilites in the same sentence but gave only one ‘yes’ or ‘no’ box for possible answers. I wondered what would happen if I ticked both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. That would be silly, though, no? Not as silly as the entire process!

I want such a simple thing! I am filling out forms to do more community work, for which I need special clearances, checks and balances, this, that and the other. I understand, and it’s a good thing – I’m happy they check, though I wish it were more effective. Certainly I wish it asked more relevant questions or consisted of something half-way sane like an actual interview!

Heaven forfend us against actually having to communicate with one another – much better we should dither, and fill out forms and pretend we’re a conscious society full of good intentions (Wait, where does that road end, again? Sorry, I forget what with all this paper to shuffle).

Never mind that this will take weeks to process, and cost the government more than I’m likely worth in administrative fees. Never mind that the forms aren’t properly databased, that there’s no system for checking if an applicant has failed the same standards in another state! It’s not like that would save time or anything – again with the silliness!

Meanwhile, I continue to dutifully fill out said forms like all the other lemmings before me. I’m bound by duty, above all else, for ‘I am the Pirate King!’

Oops, apologies, wrong film. I meant, I was almost tempted to stand before said insipid civil servant and recite Monty Python:

Him: Well, Ma’am, you see here. [stabs somewhere in the middle of messy piece of paper as I quietly fume about being "Ma'amed"]
You need to fill out this section if you’re planning on doing that. [He spits]

Me: “Well I object to your…you automatically treat me like an inferior! Oh, king, eh, very nice. And ‘ow’d you get that, eh?

By exploiting the workers! By ‘angin’ on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.

If there’s ever going to be any progress…”
But no, I was good – or rather, I was very, very tired. I imagine that perhaps J. K. Rowling had partly in mind these civil servants when imagining her Dementors. Things like this can suck out your soul if you’re not careful.

Luckily, I am careful.

There was one question in particular which rescued my then rather addled brain. It asked after my ‘distinguishing characteristics’. Ambiguous much? I could think of a few things to write just then, none of them particularly polite. However, I also thought of quite a number of others which could apply to this particular blank space. The best of which was something of an epithet I acquired amongst my University friends: The Girl with Odd Socks.

It wasn’t particularly creative on their part since it’s quite literal. I habitually wore odd coloured socks since I had absolutely no interest in bothering to sort them, ever, and regularly lost a third of them anyway so really it wasn’t worth the bother to try to find that which simply was not there. It got to the point that when I eventually got a ‘real job’ and started wearing matching socks my Mother was extremely disappointed. She said that she’d told everyone about my little quirk and now she couldn’t anymore. She made sad puppy dog eyes at me! It’s fitting, all the same, and oddly descriptive. It was a unique identifier of sorts, and I’m grateful it wasn’t of the more usual variety: extremely purile.

I got to thinking, as I stood in yet another queue to nowhere, that to answer with this nickname might be more befitting. An ambiguous answer for an ambiguous question, indeed. Moreover, an answer that reflects something far more readily distinguishable than had I answered appropriately by listing the location of moles or some such. In the end I left it blank. Appropriate but not nearly as satisfying as The Girl with Odd Socks.