trip preparations

In this day and age of travel, if you forget to pack an item, you can replace it pretty easily, almost anywhere in the world. Pain reliever, toothbrush, tampons, contact solution, reading material for the plane, ties and scarves—you name it, the airport has it. Or, if you’re traveling in the U.S., chances are good that on the path from the airport to your hotel, you will pass a Target store. Heck, you can even leave your plane ticket at home. Since the advent of e-tickets, a swipe of photo ID or a credit card brings up your flight information and allows you to print a boarding pass. Brave new world! Still, I overpack. Without exception.

You are, however, shit out of luck if you're leaving the country and forgot your passport at home. There’s no passport kiosk in the departure terminal. Yet. Hmmm, I wonder if there's a market for this? Personally, the possibility of forgetting my passport induces bad dreams the night before a trip. The Shepards leave for Stockholm/Visby in eight weeks, and guess whose passports have expired?

My passport expired a year ago, almost to the date. I am so glad to have a new book. Ten years younger and forty pounds lighter, but looking simultaneously hungover and startled, like a deer in the headlights, I have always despised the photo that I've had to face since 1998. I wish there was a way to continue filling the old passport, until it's full, with souvenir stamps. Mine holds many stamps for Schiphol (Amsterdam, the gateway to all of Europe in the 90s and early 00s) and Canada, and my older passport—the one previous to my previous passport—has my British alien residence card, a visa allowing me to travel in France (how old school?!), and an amendment changing the bearer's maiden name.

And, yes, I said passports, plural. Simon’s and Winston’s passports expired ten days ago. Children’s passports are valid for only five years—for obvious reason, but Winston’s old passport perfectly illustrates why. He had just turned two when he got his first passport—i.e., he was practically a baby and little resembles his current self.

On Saturday, the four of us schlepped way up to Roseville—Lexington and County Road C—to the one passport center within 20 miles that is open on Saturday. Both John and I needed to be present to apply for our minors’ passports. No kidding. I’m sure this is for our own protection but incredibly inconvenient when the post offices nearest to us only process passports Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

So we arrive at the passport place in Roseville, and we wait for 45 minutes before we’re granted an audience with the sole agent. As we’re waiting, I read a Donna Leon mystery, dreaming of a vacation in Venice, and eavesdrop on each person ahead of me in line as they face one bureaucratic obstacle after another. I felt pretty prepared for making our application. I had filled out the paperwork ahead of time and remembered to bring the old passports. To be honest, I left a few fields on the application blank—those for occupation (student?), work phone number, email (kids have them but hell if I’m giving them to anyone other than close friend/family), social security number—but I didn't think these would cause a problem.

And, wouldn’t you know, when we finally had our turn at the window, the first thing that agent noticed was that we hadn’t filled out the SSN. John asked politely, “Since it’s not considered legal identification, why do we need to have a SSN?” The agent answered, “It’s the law.” John challenged, “Show me the law.” Agent: “I don’t have time to know where it is, I just know it is.” Recognizing that this “logic” was something not to be messed with, John dropped the ball. And, I picked it right back up, “What if the kids didn’t have social security numbers?” Agent: “Then you’d fill in 000-00-000.” John, “So let’s do that.” Agent: “If you have a SSN and don’t fill it in, then you won’t be issued a passport.” John: “But they’ve already been issued passports.” Time to drop the ball again.

Then, as if there was actually a chance that we’d get our paperwork processed that day, the agent asked to see birth certificates. I hadn’t brought them because, according to the instructions on the application, a previous passport is sufficient to establish citizenship, as well as identification. Then the agent said, “You need a birth certificate to show the link between you and your children.” I had my ah-ha moment when I realized all these hoops were to insure that we weren’t trying to smuggle children-not-our-own out of the country.

In my head, I silently screamed: Look at these kids. I ask you Is there any doubt that they’re ours? Does the fact that they’re comfortably flipping and flopping and bouncing off the walls in this little lobby suggest in the slightest that they might be afraid of us or what we’ll do to them? Is child smuggling rampant? I’m not saying that an angry, estranged spouse wouldn’t be above kidnapping his or her own child, but do we really need these hoops FOR OUR PROTECTION????

Yesterday, John took the afternoon off so we could try, again, to get passports for the children. The clock is ticking—processing takes six to eight weeks. This time, we try the post office in St. Anthony, where nice clerks helped us five years ago. This time, I filled in the social security field, and I brought the birth certificates. We flew through the process with little grief, pleasantly chit-chatting with the agent. The boys were barely present, running around outside on the sidewalk. Sure, we came into the post office with two kids but were they matched up to their applications, photos, and old passports? Did the agent even get a good look at them? I...don't...think...so.

The boys are really concerned about not having their old passports returned.

Deep cleansing breath. The applications are in the mail.