I was sitting on a sofa at my co-working space the other day, half working, half annoyed at someone loudly taking a call in the common area (why do y’all do that?) when I myself got a call from an unknown number. In the past I never answered these because they meant I was due to have a humbling phone conversation in French with a telemarketer or Amazon delivery guy. But now that I have a child and all I can’t ignore the unknown number calls in case that child has a fever or fell off of something or other. So I answered it.

It was worse than a call from the daycare nurse: it was the Prefecture de Police calling about my citizenship request.

The woman on the other end of the phone verified that I was Shelby Chambers, the Shelby Chambers who currently has an open request for naturalization, asked if I was currently working and if I have a CAF account. I replied “uh, oui, uh, comment? uh oui, a ce moment ou en general? Uh oui, I guess.” After getting my answers to all of these, she speedi…