Tick tock tick tock

So I went down to London for the visa interview and cunningly managed to sell my car to my cousin at the same time. I turned up early for my appointment at 1245 (suspiciously labelled on my letter as the "time scheduled to arrive at the embassy") but they won't let you queue if you're there too early so I was forced to go to a nearby pub for a pint. Thereafter I queued up for 20 mins for the privilege of being admitted to the queue for the security hut, where they performed the usual airport-type security check. Curiously, this involved showing them the soles of my shoes; presumably to check I wasn't going to spread chewing gum all over the Ambassador's nice carpet.

I was then shown in to a departure lounge-type room where hundreds of damned souls were waiting to cross the Styx (or something like that anyway). 388 was the number I was given by Phlegyas, and I was mildly disturbed to note that the current numbers being called were in the vicinity of 200. I sat down to wait. And wait.
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Gosh! We're in to the 300s!
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An hour later it was my turn, and with pounding heart I approached the window, clutching my documents. The depressingly English girl took my documents (informing me along the way that I hadn't completed the form correctly - how was I supposed to know that I was still meant to indicate that my husband, wife, son, daughter, and fiancee are not in the US, even though I have none of these), scanned my fingerprints like the hardened criminal I am, and told me to sit back down. For the really long wait.
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You get the picture. The annoying thing was that the numbers this time were not being called in numerical order, rather with a roughly numerical increase but with a window of about forty or so. This meant I couldn't turn off and read a book, safe in the knowledge that I probably wouldn't miss my turn, I had to sit there fixated on the screen for three horrendous hours. After everybody else's number in the forty or so window had been called and they were well into the 420s my number was finally called. I haven't been so nervous in a long time. What if they said no? How would I explain it to my new boss? "I'm sorry I didn't get a visa because my head is 3 inches too long for US Department of Homeland Security regulations". All this and more was running through my boredom-addled mind as I approached the first American I'd seen all day in the US embassy.

"What visa are you applying for?"
"Er, J-1"
"That means you're going from one place to another to diseminate your vast wisdom"
(nervous laugh)
"Where are you studying now?"
"Er, Leicester University, er sorry the University of Leicester"
"And where are you going to?" (all this information was written on my now-corrected DS-156)
"Er, Boston University"
"OK, we should have this done for you in three to five working days. Enjoy your time in Boston"
"Er, OK. Thanks, er, bye"

That was it. That was IT. Four bloody hours of waiting for a thirty second bloody pointless interview. He didn't even ask for half the stuff I was told I had to bring. Grr.

I treated myself to a can of Grolsch on the train back home.