Catch Twenty Eight!

For some reason, the Mexican government likes to keep their staff busy. Since we have to update,renew,refund our tourist resident visas we need to visit the Immigration office once a year. The first challenge is to find a parking space on a busy boulevard which is dotted by small shops, hospitals, car lots, residences, apartments, restaurants and offices. It's not like the US where each building or two has a attached parking lot......NOT, it everyman man or woman for themselves.

So, dropping of my wife, I found a space and return to the office to wait our turn in line. This year we were prepared! My ever organized darling had made all the preliminary work ahead of time, even to the task of me taking new mug shots of both of us which are required every 5 years. We were so smart to do that since last time , 5 years ago, in the midst of the paperwork we were told that they could not proceed until new photos were taken which meant that we had to leave, lose our parking spot and maneuver the traffic in search for an open photo studio that was staffed, and one that could deliver the photos in some reasonable time in this millennium.
Armed with our new photos which we took before we came down, the immigration clerk examined them, inspected them, compared them to the last ones, compared them to the little shadow fame she had to be sure they were of the proper size, then , and only then she advised us that they would not be accepted.
Well seems that they now require not only a frontal view but a side double chin exposing view making all our super smart advance preparation all for not! In one swell swoop all my work was down the drain......I wonder why she spent 3 or 4 minutes reexamining the photos, when at home our bureaucrat would have tossed them back to us immediately after seeing that no double chin shots where included. In Mexico people don't want to say no to you , so this way she showed some interest and only after all her possible ways to see if the photos were ok, her last choice was to reject them because of no double chin views. In the US they are trained to say no immediately.......thats one of the differences between two countries.