It Was Bound to Happen Sooner or Later

My mother came home from her morning walk to find a pair of agents from the Department of Homeland Security standing on her front porch. Having found nobody at home, they were talking to my dad (away on business) on his cellphone, trying to find out why they had no record that my parents' Kurdish exchange student ever returned to Iraq. Well, he did, my mother said. He went home to Kurdistan, and then he came back to live with his brother in the States, and now he works at a 7/11 in Canada. My family saw him off at the airport personally, so if the Department of Homeland Security didn't have a record of his leaving California, it was probably because of a fuckup at the Department of Homeland Security. (She didn't say "fuckup.") They asked if she was still in touch with him, and she said yes, they email regularly. What was his email address? Well, she didn't feel comfortable giving that out, but if they'd like to leave their contact information, she could send it to him. "That will probably put me on a no-fly list," she joked to my aunt. Sure, Mom, it's all a big joke until you wake up naked in Guantanamo, chained to a concrete floor. So we can all breathe a sigh of relief, I guess--our nation is now protected from terrorists by an agency of men and women who can't keep track of a damn high school honors student. Thanks, Dubya!