Hmmm…let me start that another way.
“Guess what just happened?!”
No…no. That isn’t quite the way to say it. Try this again.
“News Flash: Regular Passport Renewals Arrive Faster Than Expedited Applications for New Passports.”
Those other applications? The ones that contained
photographs taken at the same time and place as the expedited application’s
photograph—the one that got rejected? They sailed right through that other
bureaucrat’s in-box and out the door after a cursory moment for processing. We received them in yesterday's mail.
Maybe Walgreens got it wrong. And maybe they didn’t.
Maybe some civil servant was just having a bad hair day. Or
got up on the wrong side of the bed.
Whatever the case, the “expedited” passport application—the one
that cost significantly more money—is still being held hostage somewhere in the
vast bureaucratic maze at the State Department.
In the meantime, someone’s application for study abroad is
put on hold until that magic passport number arrives from said State Department and can
be affixed to its proper place by an anxious college student.
Above: photograph of United States passport cover, courtesy Wikipedia.
Above: photograph of United States passport cover, courtesy Wikipedia.
Oh I believe it. When I got my first passport, I didn't bother to expedite it because I had plenty of time. It came in 2 weeks. When my husband got his first passport, he had plenty of time but paid to expedite "just to be safe." It came with plenty of time to spare. Too bad someone didn't reject his application though -- his picture is terrible. A customs worker even laughed at it.
ReplyDeleteA customs worker laughed at it? Well, that'll put a twist into your international travel :)
DeleteAfter all the horror stories we had heard about passports getting hung up in the process "forever," we were prepared to wait. I didn't exactly get mine in two weeks this time (it was more like eighteen days), but one would think the expedited one would have gotten here sooner than the non-expedited one.
Hmmmm...April Fool's Day makes three weeks...I wonder....
Our government at work. I'm sorry your daughter is in "study abroad" limbo :-(
ReplyDeleteThat's an apt way to put it, Debi: "study abroad limbo." I predict she will get her passport in about two more weeks. By then, her spring semester will nearly be over!
DeleteSome how, given the "perversity" of our Government - I'm not at all surprised.
ReplyDeleteI won't say - I don't need the NSA bugging me.
Other than the fact that it is costing us personally, it's almost laughable to see how much wiggle room there is in this fine science of passports and visas.
DeleteDarn...I hope your daughters shows up soon:)
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping so, too, but kinda doubting it. It seems so arbitrary.
DeleteFar Side, I'm almost tempted to collect readers' guesses for passport arrival day, like you do for your snow stick day. ;)