The INS is holding us hostage

If you know of a more incompetent, frustrating organization than the INS, please please tell me so I can feel better. We still have not received our i-171H approval form. So yesterday, after waiting for the mandatory "don't bug us until 60 days has passed or we will screw up your file just to spite you" amount of days, we leaped into action. We emailed our congressperson (who is a leader in immigration reform, particularly adoption immigration), we faxed an obsequious letter to the local INS office saying "we're gravely concerned that something has happened to our file since you always had such wonderful response times in the past" (puke), and our agency called some secret phone number that they have (since our local INS office doesn't allow those of us adopting children to have any way to contact them or check on the progress of a case). And the reply from this stellar example of our tax dollars and recently tripled adoption fees at work? Did they admit that they are grossly late and incompetent? Oh no. They simply claimed they "never got our revised homestudy." What?!!! WE HAND DELIVERED IT TO THE DROP BOX AT THEIR OFFICE. How on earth could they manage to lose it in the 4 feet from the box to a desk? What utter crap. I swear I couldn't even breathe for about 2 hours after hearing this. And I later found out that TubaDad immediately called our congressperson office and requested an appointment with her. We seethed for hours, then ranted for a few more, then decided we needed comfort food and drove to our new favorite place in Morgan Hill, Sinaloa Cafe. There we drowned our sorrows in amazingly strong margaritas (good god that bartender is heavy handed -- in a good way), and perfect tacos. You can see from the middle picture that we never completely managed to forget our troubles, but it was much better. A stop off at Trisha's house on the way home for some extra sympathy and the best hugs in the U.S., and we were calmed down enough to sleep last night. Our agency FedExed another copy of the homestudy to the INS yesterday (yes we will get a receipt confirming delivery but even that is no guarantee) and hopefully the case will be processed this week. And those of you who know us will probably agree that the INS just picked on the wrong people. They'll see. Stay tuned. (By the way, yes I know it isn't called the INS any more, but I can barely say USCIS, let alone type it 20 times while seething. And the new name is stupid.)