Wrong Form Hats

The building has its own weather. There is a number system, a set of chairs bolted together, and a screen that advances in a sequence nobody has ever successfully predicted. You brought documents. You brought, you believed, all of them. The defining experience is not the waiting — people can wait. It is reaching the counter and learning that the thing you needed was a different thing, which was listed on a page you did not find, and that you will now be doing this again. There is no villain in the story. The person at the counter has said this four hundred times and takes no pleasure in it. That is what makes it safe and funny to wear: the target is a process nobody defends, not a worker and not a political position. Everyone has been there. Everyone brought the wrong form at least once. And the queue itself has a culture. People compare documents in the chairs. Somebody always says how long they have been there, unprompted, to nobody in particular. It is the only place left where strangers still talk to each other, which is either heartening or an indictment depending on the hour.