No. 24 How NOT to Renew Your Passport

A Handy Experiential Guide

In the United States, passport processing takes eight to twelve weeks. To achieve maximum unease and inefficiency during the passport application or renewal process, please duplicate my recent experience with this easy thirty-six step program:

• Wait to apply until your impending trip abroad is exactly twelve weeks away

• Under no circumstances should you read the three-point-font application “instructions.” It ruins the element of surprise

• Waste time on the broken online passport appointment scheduler at usps.com before calling the local post office directly

• Discover that the passport person left for vacation ten minutes ago and no, there are no appointments until said person returns from traveling on their own annoyingly valid passport

• Call a post office just over the state line in Massachusetts. You can’t waste precious minutes driving farther than necessary in your own state. Besides, it’s next to the smoothie bar, and don’t you deserve a smoothie for all of this hassle

• On appointment day, sweep all of the papers on your desk into a manila envelope and hope that the “important documents” that the government requires are in there

• Practice gratitude when the surly Massachusetts post office passport woman tells you that you’re lucky she’s still there because your “appointment” is very close to when she has to get her hair done

• Do not get defensive when she finds your “important documents” lacking and asks why your eighteen-year-old doesn’t have a driver’s license for state ID. Agree to return the next day with his driver’s permit

• Tell the passport lady that her hair looks nice when you see her the next day

• Suppress your disgruntled expression when she tells you the driver’s permit that you scoured the dusty corners of your house to locate is not sufficient because you are from a different state, and you will require a second form of ID

• Wonder why, when she saw your out-of-state address on the application yesterday, she didn’t mention it then

• Ask her what other form of ID will meet the secondary requirement. Agree to return the next day with a school ID

• Try to look happy to see the post mistress for the third day in a row

• Freeze the expression on your face when she tells you that, yes, school IDs are accepted, but not YOUR school ID because it’s from out-of-state. See above for thoughts about when it might have been expedient for her to mention this

• Remain polite when you ask her what other forms of ID are there for a high schooler besides a valid passport, valid driver’s permit, and valid school ID that could possibly be supplied

• Do not take offense when she tells you that her sixteen-year-old has a gun permit and she looks at you with an expression that says, What kind of Second-Amendment-hating libtard parent would not equip their teenager with a firearm?

• Compromise by providing a health insurance card with son’s name on it

• Practice deep breathing when two of post mistress’s regular customers come in and ask if she is indeed going to transfer to another office and she responds, “Hell, yes. People be coming in here and pissing me off every damn day.”

• Inhale again

• Don’t say it. You want to, but don’t

• Ignore yourself

• Ask why she seems to be annoyed with you when it was she who failed to clarify the requirements on two separate occasions. This will definitely help the situation

• Stew in your irritation while she disappears around the corner with the application, driver’s permit, school ID, insurance card, and passport and reappears with a sealed envelope that you assume contains all of said required documents

• Feel grateful that you will never have to see this woman again

• Receive a letter from the government stating that in order to renew a passport, you must include the expiring passport with your application

• Read the letter a second time

• Visualize the moment that you gave the passport to the postmistress

• Confirm with your son who witnessed said event

• Process the fact that the postmistress, out of spite, excluded the passport from the application and that it is probably in a landfill

• Breathe deeply

• Visualize committing a felony

• Visualize yourself in prison

• Visualize committing a misdemeanor instead. But a mean misdemeanor

• Download simplified Form EZ-suckstobeyou.2 from the government for “lost” passports and do NOT bring it to Massachusetts

• Enjoy the nail-biting excitement of possibly missing your expensive, meticulously-investigated, non-refundable vacation

• Buy another smoothie

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