Why Does Getting a Passport Have to Be So Hard?

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Shh, be very, very quiet. We are trying to file paperwork so that my daughter can get her passport. If you’re too loud, it will spook the governmental paperwork and it will go back down it’s hole for six weeks. That means we will have more winter and my daughter won’t have her passport. She won’t be able to go to France and a plague will descend upon my house. Which means that all I’ll write about the whole summer is how everyone was too loud and now my daughter throws forks at my head.

This is my third time trying to complete the passport paperwork. The first time, I thought I could do all this myself. I’m a competent adult that used to work for the government. I know how the beast works from the inside. Talk to the right person, flash the right smile, show a little bit of man cleavage and I could make this happen. I was but a fool.

So, I hired a private investigator and after 2 months of stakeouts, he finally found the correct webpage that describe all the documents that we would need. The guy likes to eat at very fine restaurants. I feel this is a bit unethical in the PI world, but I paid the bill because now I actually had a list of what was needed. I made our appointment with the right official and got ready to go.

“Ok, we have everything we need,” I told my daughter. “Except your birth certificate. Go get it.”

“Where is it?” she asked.

“In the file cabinet where I always keep it.”

“Um…”

“What?”

“I didn’t put it back after I got my license.”

“But I told you to put it back,” I said.

“I know, but I didn’t.”

In case anyone is wondering, we keep the value pack of Tums in this household. 20 minutes before our appointment, I tore the house apart looking for her birth certificate. I couldn’t find it and my PI was unavailable. But on the super-secret website, I discovered that I could use her old passport. I called our official to make sure. She wasn’t sure. So, she had to talk to 24 supervisors and sacrifice a chicken. Then she told me it was fine but unfortunately, I had now missed our appointment. The next one available was next week. I put the PI on retainer.

The appointment time finally comes, and my daughter and I head down. We sit with the very nice lady who doesn’t appear to want to destroy me. This was a trick.

When it came down to pay, I slapped down my debit card.

“I’m sorry,” the deceptive lady said. “It has to be paid cash or a cashier’s check.”

“I haven’t used a cashier’s check since the late 90s, and I don’t even have checks anymore,” I pleaded.

She drank in my sorrow and said, “We can make another appointment.”

“No!” I screamed. “I shall find a cashier’s check! I remember how to do this, I think! Is our paperwork ready other than that?”

“Yes,”

“Can you be here in 20 minutes?”

“Yes,” she said.

And with that, we were off on an archeological hunt.

I began at a local bank. Banks do cashier’s checks. I’m pretty sure about that. And the lady there was obviously happy to help once I told her what I needed. She would deduct our check out of our account. To which I told her that I don’t have an account here, I just need a cashier’s check.

She laughed and called the passport lady to share my pain.

I seem to remember that grocery stores used to do money orders. It’s been a while, so we headed there next. At the customer service counter, I explained to the teenager what we needed.

“A what?” he asked.

“A cashier’s check,” I said.

“We do money orders,” he said.

“Fine. That will work,” I said.

“No, I mean we can cash them but not issue them.”

It seems like he could have told me this in the first place before I explained financial literacy to him. Strike 2. Next, I turned to the internet.

And behold! Just down the street is local major chain drugstore that do cashier’s checks! It says so right on the website. I hustled with my daughter and just made it before they closed in 5 hours.

“I need a cashier’s check,” I told the lady behind the counter.

“A what?”

Oh, Christ hell. I explained what they were, and I thorough a discussion about interest rates and supply side economics as well as my favorite band from 1994. She still had no idea what I was talking about.

I’m not defeated. I just have to go further. My own bank is across town from where I was at. I had no choice, we left.

“Please, for all that is holy, I need a cashier’s check!” I said to the teller.

“Sure,” she said. “I just need your account.”

I do have an account here!

However…

“It says your account is dormant?”

“It’s vacation savings account. We do most of our banking online but I keep this one to save for vacations. And well, Covid and all that. It’s not dormant.  There’s been a plague.”

She saw me wilt and took pity on me.  I had my cashier’s check! I let our PI know that we would no longer be needing his services. My daughter and I raced back to the lady. We approached the desk. We handed over our paperwork!

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the new lady said. “She just went home. We can make you another appointment.”

This is life, and it’s important for my daughter to see how it can kick you right in the teeth. I made another appointment.

In fact, that appointment is in 20 minutes. I’m getting ready as I write this story.

“Ok, honey,” I literally said to my daughter a minute ago. “Get your paperwork, the cashier’s check, and your old passport.”

“Dad…” my daughter said.

“I forgot where I put my passport.”

 

 

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The post Why Does Getting a Passport Have to Be So Hard? appeared first on The Good Men Project.


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