Do I Need One if I Promise To Just Stay On The Plane?

I applied for my passport last week. I got to the Passport Office midmorning, expecting to wait a short while and be home for lunch. I was sadly mistaken.

Some background: As of the 23rd of January, 2007, anyone traveling into the United States by air, regardless of where they are coming from, will require a passport. Until now, Canadians didn’t need a passport to travel to the States at all. We’ve always considered getting passports, but with seven of us it would be a costly venture, and they expire, so we’d like to wait until we’re actually planning some sort of trip.

Anyway, back to the passport office. There were over a hundred people in line. TV news crews were filming a story (”And, coming up after the commercial, some idiots wait until the last minute.”). A smiling commissionaire was handing out tickets with numbers on them. My ticket was an order of magnitude off the one on the NOW SERVING board.

I wanted to yell “But I’m not waiting until the last minute! I’m not flying until March! All of you goofballs that ARE waiting until the last minute are gumming up the system so that I have to be here now!”. I looked for the “Not waiting until last minute, really!” line, hoping it would be much shorter and would involve beverages and snacks but alas, it was not to be. The commissionaire thought it was a good idea, though.

The line was so long they had to snake it around the room and double it back on itself a few times, so I caught snippets of conversations from just about everyone there. The Passport Office people should seriously consider hiring most of the people from my lineup, because they all seemed to know exactly how to make the process work much more quickly and efficiently.

Mid-afternoon, after four and a half hours shuffling around the room in some sort of demented slow motion bunny-hop, I handed the lady behind the counter my application, my pair of “trying hard not to look like a terrorist” photos, my debit card and my best attempt at a smile after standing four and a half hours in line 2 weeks after knee surgery.

4 paper clips, 2 rubber stamps, a manila folder, a “Have a nice afternoon” and a debit receipt later, I was free to go see if my car was towed.

When I’m Prime Minister, boy, there’s going to be some changes. I hope I’ll be able to find all those people from the line to advise me.

–MrPages