Bad Gatekeeper! No Cookie!

Talking to an admissions officer at a college that shall remain nameless, “As an International Student you will need to submit your TOEFL score.”

Me: “I live in California.”

Admissions Officer: “Yes, but you are from a different country so you will need to take an English language competency exam.”

Me: “I speak English as my native language. My Mother was an English teacher. I speak, read and write better English than most of your professors and certainly as well as anyone outside of your English department.”

Admissions Officer: “Well, you do have an accent.”

Me: “Yes, it is an English accent. Because I speak English. And I have concluded that you’re an idiot and this institution is probably not for me. Good bye.”

So far I have omitted the part where we circled around the geography of the UK. “You’re from Wales? I thought you said you were from the UK and spoke English.”

And on it went for several minutes where I carefully explained Wales as a principality and how the United Kingdom, Great Britain, Ireland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England all relate to each other. I had Wikipedia open because even the British get confused by this shit.

At which point she said “No, I think you’re wrong.”

And that was that, no further explanation of how, just “you’re wrong.”

Just another story of bureaucratic foolishness to add to the arsenal I can tell to youngsters in my twilight years when they ask what the world was like before we got rid of all the gatekeepers.