Regina's Rants

There must be a Rose Street somewhere in the map… Source

I arrived home after a week’s sojourn in Geneva and noticed that someone had defaced the wall area above the post box of my apartment building.  Someone, apparently not very cognizant with graffiti, the high art of writing, drawing and painting on walls, had used an indelible black ink pen and scribbled a thick, ugly “Nº 27” on cream-coloured tiles.  Serendipitous or not, my address, and those of my neighbours, had had nothing to do with Nº 27 since, according to local lore, way before old pine trees were felled to give way to our home.  I wondered if I should scrub out the unsightly numerals, call the condominium people to do their job, or call the police. 

Then I read the menacing rubber stamp on every letter accumulated in our post box during our trip:  Your address has been changed, you are requested to update your correspondence address as soon as possible, ETM.  I was not told what was our new address, or where to go for information.

I took off to the supermarket and, with a sense of foreboding, noticed the writing on the walls.  In my short absence, neighbouring buildings and houses from another street had also been transmuted by that free hand in black indelible ink pen, on the wall above each post box. It was a sign:  lote 36 had turned Nº 17;  lote 91 transformed into Nº 22.  And so on.  Luckily, nothing was written in blood, and numerical threats did not develop into words.  But my ‘hood had turned from being a strangely numbered cluster of houses and apartment buildings into a half-civilized strip with numerals ordered from inception to infinity.  

But that is not all. My street has been reversed:  I used to be Nº 1, obviously the first in the street, and now I was the last at Nº 27.  What type of devious person inverts the numerical flow of a street, especially when there aren’t enough apartment blocks and houses to reach Nº 27? The whole operation had a whiff of the military to it, something quite en vogue nowadays, considering our sad world affairs.

It would be too much to ask for a letter telling me of my new address. Source

I dashed to the central post office, the one with the reputation for being encyclopaedic in its knowledge and reach, for I imagine the people working there have been through all sorts changes and memorised every rule and regulation that could possibly affect the population’s diverse correspondence.  I waited that long while that post offices seem to demand from their users (and I did feel used). During my turn at the till, which turned out to be 95% shorter than my wait, my Nº 27 inquiry to a polite attendant who whispered her answer revealed that it was not the business of that post office; I should head to the distribution post office agency, at the Industrial Zone.  

I immediately drove there, and, after another long queue, I posed my question and watched the female employee inhale deeply and expel a noisy sigh.  Her expelled air reached me and her halitosis attacked me.  I felt faint. I instantly lost the will to find out about my Nº 27 and took a step back from the counter.  It turned out I should have backtracked farther.  But I felt a smidge of empathy toward her, as I imagined she must have had many other queries on the same subject that day.  I stopped breathing while her pale, shrunken lips pronounced my sentence: You have to go to the Câmara (Council), they’re the ones who have to explain it.  Explain?  Is it really that complicated?

Ethereal workers searching for my new street in a map, or somewhere else. Source

Well, things were straightforward bureaucracy-wise.  The Câmara person who answered my phone query told me that I needed a Caderneta Predial (property identification document); a form of personal ID to prove I was who I said I was; and utility bills as proof that I lived where I said I did.  So I prepared my folio and headed to the dreaded Câmara. The enlightened Citizen’s Counter person was super nice, and the Perspex barrier between us made our interaction all the more pleasant, even if she did sneeze a few times.  Between sneezes, she helped me discover my new address; the new name of my road; filled in some forms online, printed them, and slid them under the barrier for me to sign. I could have been signing all my worldly goods to her.  She sent the forms into the ether, so that someone up there, or down there, could prepare a new official form and send it to me, by proper snail mail, confirming that the old address had changed to the new address. It was the official form, required by law.  This ethereal registration should take about thirty days. I like surprises, so I did not ask her if the wait would be a calendar month or thirty working days, or if they included the upcoming holidays on 1 and 8 December.

I was told that upon the auspicious arrival of the official form, husband and I would have to contact just about everyone in our address books, plus some whose addresses we do not have. Think ID card people; Residence (AIMA) people; driving license people; tax people; property deeds people; notary; lawyer; banks and cards; all my online shops, for they will be linked to cards with a new address; doctors; insurers; family in three continents; and just about everyone we’ve ever met since we moved here almost 15 years ago.

It would be too much, I suppose, to expect the haloed and, of course, very, very busy Câmara to send us a letter first of all, stating that our address had changed.  No, no, that is not done.  What if the letter fell into the wrong hands? It was part, the Câmara person explained through her Perspex protection, of enacting the law.  What law?  The law that changed the name and numbers in my street.  Ah.

Apparently, the new street is named after an architect and senior inspector of public works back over fifty years ago (it could also be a century or two), if the name I was given and what I found in Google search are one and the same. There are numerous combinations of the same first and last names yielding doctor, writer, lawyer. The problem is, they are all men. It seems no woman of valour or other achievement has lived in this town. Ever. I am not surprised it happened. Maybe I expected too much from people who are proud of their own lack of ideas. You know what they are.

Nice piggy! Nice piggy! Source

Pigs apart, I have also searched Google Earth, Waze, Michelin Route Planner, and Google Maps for my new address. My renamed road is nowhere.  Not in Portugal, Brazil, or Angola. Perhaps it’s in Iceland, gone down those smoking cracks.

Ad nauseam, I will have to explain my new but same address to the guy who brings my fresh pasta with seafood sauce, but there are also deliveries from the Japanese, the Indian, the butcher. Visits from the plumber, the electrician… Most importantly, what about those numerous Amazon delivery drivers?

Would this renamed road be as sweet and smell as nice?  Would this new road still have the same potholes and the mad drivers zigzagging around them?  Will the lost horses parade up and down in search of food? Would the bread man still dash by every day at 9:30 blaring his horn to attract customers? 

Thirty days of limbo about my official road name. The only good thing about this is the opportunity to remove the weeds from our address books.