Bon Voyage

My father swore that when I was four years old, I announced in very high dudgeon, “You know, I have never been anywhere in my WHOLE life!”

That sounds like me.  Filled with insatiable wanderlust from the get-go.

Thus, it was with trepidation akin to alarm that I realized that my passport was due to expire at the end of March. I would have to have it renewed ASAP.

ICYMI PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Oops. I never knew that in many countries, passports that are expiring within three or six months are no longer valid. In many places, your passport is NOT good until the date of expiration.  So if your passport is up this year, be on the safe side and renew it now.  Click here for further official details.

The first thing you’ll need is a new photo.  This, to me, was a mitzvah.  My old passport picture was hideous.  Ten years ago, I was going- hair-wise- from this:

To this:

(Me, now.  But you get the idea.)

My passport photo caught me in transition.  And all you ladies out there will know what this means.  I looked like this:

I pitied every poor official who had to look at that picture.

So last week, I happily dolled myself up and went over to my nearby FedEx to get snapped.

A very nice woman competently took charge of the shoot.

“Over here,” she said as she led me to the standard-approved white photographic background.  “Hair behind the ears, please.  It’s a new rule.  And no smiling.”

$14.95 later and my pre-filled-out form now had two new compliant photos attached.

FedEx couldn’t send my application to the passport agency in Philadelphia- they can’t mail to a post office box- but I knew that the UPS store in the same mini mall could.

A few minutes later, I was out their door with a tracking number and a feeling of relief as big as the whole outdoors.

Mission accomplished.

Not so fast, Smith.

It never occurred to me here in relatively-mild Chicago that I was sending my precious passport into the maw of that horrible blizzard that engulfed most of the East Coast last week.

Uh oh.

And sure enough, my scheduled date of delivery was the very Saturday that Snowzilla hit.

Jonas was one for the record books.  Twenty-eight inches of snow fell on the Philadelphia region.

And of course my passport application didn’t get delivered on time.

The last tracking showed that it had arrived in Philadelphia on Monday afternoon and had left for its destination at 8:49 pm.

Then silence.

No emails, no texts.  Nothing.

Worriedly, I called the US Passport Agency.  A very helpful gentleman could not find my application but he had a suggestion. “Check with your bank.  The check might have cleared.”

Duh.

The very next day, it had. And then things got cooking.

Long story short, I got confirmation two days ago- one week from the time that my app had arrived- that my passport was processed and that my new one had been sent out.

It’s due to arrive sometime today.

(And I didn’t even ask for the expedited service.  Pretty darn efficient, I’d say.)

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue US Postal Service!

There’s no place like home.

But when that new baby is in my hot little hands…

Look out!

Argentina and New Zealand, here I come.

I hope that four year old me would approve.