How to react to good news

After checking for months and months to see when our petition would get approved, we decided to slow down with the holidays approaching. We checked a few times before Christmas and a few times between Christmas and New Year but we didn't want to get our hopes too high. You see, whenever you punch in your registration number the screen usually shows 4 polka dots in a row.

We'd been in the Initial Review stage for over 6 months, which basically meant that our application stood somewhere in a box, waiting impatiently for its turn. Initial Review is the limbo of USCIS, so we grew to hate that second polka dot with the power of a thousand pre-December 21st suns. It was always navy blue and always staring us in the face saying "they forgot about you! Ha ha ha!". Ok, maybe I was staring at the screen too much, but it did seem to have a high mocking potential.

So on January 1st, when we were packing the first of the giant suitcases that Trevor brought back with him to the US, I decided to check one more time. And there it was, the migration had occurred, the second polka dot was back to being a regular old gray one.

Naturally, I want to share the news with Trevor as fast as possible so I yell without moving away from the screen (had to keep an eye on that bugger).

Mickey: Treeeeeeeeeeeevor! We were approved!!!

Trevor (who was packing in the other room): Whaaaaat?

Mickey: We were approved!

Trevor (in very serious disbelief): Are you <expletive> kidding me?

It turned out I was not kidding and we both proceeded to do a celebration dance by jumping up and down at 11:30 PM. My downstairs neighbors were cool about it and didn't complain.

Usually Trevor is the optimistic one. Waiting for that long would make anyone a pessimist.