Wednesday, March 3rd
I was supposed to pick-up my permesso di siogiorno at the questura. When I got there, there was a long line in the front. I wasn’t sure what people were there for, but they were keeping their distance and I tried to blend into the queue.
15 minutes later, an angle finally emerged.
He was standing on top of the stairs (the one you’re supposed to go inside the building) and he mumbled some stuff. First of all, he was too far for me to even try to and combine that with my average borderline bad Italian, I got nothing from that.
I was talking to my friend and told her the officer’s finally here and we stopped talking. I took off one of my earphones so that they won’t fall. Anyway, finally it was my turn and he took some stuff from everyone. At this point, I didn’t know everyone was there to pick-up their permesso, so when I was face to face with this officer, I told him in Italian that I was there to pick-up my permesso. He then said “you should have taken your earphones off then, huh? I told you, just give me the receipt and your old permesso” in a high-pitched tone.
He moved on to the people behind me and I got my permesso card while I tried to figure out which one of the three papers from the police would be the receipt. I thought “If I showed him all three, he can certainly pick the right one right?”
WRONG!
When he saw I had more than one piece of paper that I thought was the right document, he said “just take the receipt off the bundle!” I didn’t know how to say I didn’t know which one is which, but the other people knew I was having trouble and tried to point exactly which document he wanted and what I needed to give him.
I thought it was over, but it wasn’t.
I had to wait another 15 minutes until the same officer came out and held a few envelopes and called out people’s names including mine. He then said that those people can come in, so I climbed the stairs and once I got close to the door he raised his voice again and said “WAIT!”
He wanted all of us, the cattle, to go in one at a time according to his list, enough though it didn’t really matter as we had to wait inside, yet again.
After another 15 minute wait, my name was called.
Luckily there was a plastic barrier between us, so it didn’t matter that this douche was not wearing his mask. He then continued to open my envelope, took out my permesso, and proceeded to throw it as if it was a frisbee.
He then said, “check it.”
I quickly scanned the information on the card as I was trying to regain my composure of what just happened. I flipped the card to pretend I was checking the information on the front and back of the card so I could finally give it to him back. I slid the card through the little hole to give it back to him.
He then asked for my right fingerprint.
I put my hand on the device and let go.
Time for the left fingerprint.
At this point, it was hard for me to keep my composure after everything that has happened. As I put my finger on the device, it was hard for me to hold back the feeling that I want to leave, so I let go a bit earlier.
He then said, “WAIT!”
I had to redo the left fingerprint and tried to do everything as smoothly as possible so he won’t raise his voice at me again.
He then grabbed the card to put it back in the envelope, proceeded to throw it like a frisbee, yet again, and said “CIAO.”
Questura officers need to change.
