Passport Stupidity (1 Viewer)

[jane]

Wow. I came to NY to get my passport renewed because it was actually the only practical way to do it. Get it in 24 hours, I thought. Costs extra, but the peace of mind is worth it, I said.

Do I have my passport? No, friends, I do not. Is my mind peaceful? If it is in peace, it is only because I have realised that the whole situation is now out of my hands. My passport is somewhere in this great city, possibly to be given to me today, which is more than the 24 hours I paid for. I guess you could say that I got a free extra day of passport babysitting.

Four hours of forms, drama, frantic phone calls (my friend had to come up and fill out forms attesting that I am a real person, and not just a collection of molecules), two letters to the STate Department, one of which was a formal apology for the existence of cyclones, and two attempts to get the photo right, even the people behind me in the queue, who were waiting ages, thought it was pretty funny. Circus! A circus! Luckily, the pencil pushers were really nice about it, and incredibly apologetic about the amount of paperwork and stupid crap that had to be done.

No matter, I thought. I will have the offending document tomorrow afternoon. After all, it's why I paid way over the odds. It's why I wrote two letters to the State Department trying to plead my case. I went in to the agency yesterday afternoon and was told that the machine that prints passports (which I imagine looks like a cross between a waffle iron and a bedazzler) is busted. THE MACHINE THAT PRINTS PASSPORTS IS BUSTED.

Anyway, if I don't get the thing this morning, I'm stranded here for the weekend, which is, by the way, not the worst thing in the world, even if it is inconvenient. It's going to be 72 degrees F today (like 21C).

Please post stories of passport hell and/or stupidity here.

 

[theoootini]

just the usual "dad- quick drive my passprt to the airport" hopping on one foot malarky..

 

[freddienonose]

Trying get a visa for an Ethiopian to holiday with you, well, anywhere...

 

[Squiggle]

Ah Jane! What a total nightmare... sorry to hear that it's still not sorted. Hope they sort you out soon.

My only passport madness story was my Dad realising his passport had expired with just 5 days to go before he was due to fly to Thailand for my brother's wedding. Cue me (luckily I was working on Dawson St at the time) running back and forward to the passport office, while the parents made constant phone calls, to try and speed the operation up. Collected the thing the day evening before their early morning flight and had the pleasure of hand delivering it to them at the airport at 4 in the morning.

 

[SONYMEGADRIVE]

one time going on holiday way with my parents when i was but a scut, my parents passports were both out of date. the guy in dublin copped this and after much discussion decided to let us through - he told my da that when going through foreign customs he should slap the child and have a row with the wife so they'll leave you alone

some rent-a-cop in cardiff gave me a load of shit over the state of my passport - CARDIFF. i got it a couple of years previously going to the states (you can imagine how much more battered it was 2 years on) - but cardiff. on a sunday night. and i'm white. get real my man. his superior just looked at him cockeyed and said "get real, my man"

 

[Lord Damian]

they're sticklers for the 'no smiling, looking directly at the camera' rule in this country. i had to explain to the passport folks that the reason my eyes weren't dead fixed on the camera was because my eyes were wonky. they believed it. actually, i'm not even sure it was a lie. was enjoying a lovely hangover the day i got the pic taken.

i know a couple who's year old baby got denied a passport because he wasn't looking at the camera, little terrorist son of a bitch that he is.

 

[jane]

one time going on holiday way with my parents when i was but a scut, my parents passports were both out of date. the guy in dublin copped this and after much discussion decided to let us through - he told my da that when going through foreign customs he should slap the child and have a row with the wife so they'll leave you alone

some rent-a-cop in cardiff gave me a load of shit over the state of my passport - CARDIFF. i got it a couple of years previously going to the states (you can imagine how much more battered it was 2 years on) - but cardiff. on a sunday night. and i'm white. get real my man. his superior just looked at him cockeyed and said "get real, my man"

Did he just think you and yer ma needed a smack? I'd do shit like that if I worked in customs.

Even though it's dodgy to get in some places when there are less than 6 months left on your passport, I got let into Italy because my picture was hilariously pathetic, so bad that the lads in passport control were passing it around, laughing their heads off. In fact, that shitty passport picture has gotten me out of more potential hassle than any excuse ever could. Even saved me from the 'your passport is damaged and therefore possibly fake' scrape. Because they'd assume that if someone was going to forge a passport, they'd use a better picture.

ANYWAY, I got the damn thing, FINALLY, about 2 hours before I left for the airport. I surprised even myself that I wasn't in a panic, but I guess it's partly due to the fact that it isn't the worst thing in the world to be stranded in NY for the weekend. Now I wish I had been.

And after all that, I rushed to the airport to find that my flight was delayed, and then they didn't have a plane for us. They announced this and then all the Aer Lingus staff disappeared, leaving half the passengers shouting and screaming and starting fights (doesn't take much to turn people into animals, that's for sure) and the rest of us taking turns listening in and reporting back as to who was ranting about what, and bursting our holes laughing, trying not to notice that we'd been left high and dry without so much as a cup of water, let alone the vouchers we'd have been entitled to. Every ten minutes or so, the JFK ground staff would come on the intercom, each time more frantic, "Would ANY member of Aer Lingus staff please come to Gate B 28..." which, of course, they did not. After three hours, ONE dude showed up and gave out to everyone for not being patient enough. There was such a mad, beastly crush of people that one woman ended up fainting. It was pretty fucking embarrassing.

Eventually, we were too tired to laugh. They eventually found a charter flight that was willing to take us back, we took off five hours late, got to Shannon and had the SAME problem, that there was no fucking airplane for us. The poor charter staff weren't even meant to be working, but they were hilarious, even though the plane was so freezing cold we all shivered and lost the feeling in our extremities. Got home yesterday afternoon, new passport in hand, and slept and slept and slept, and am extremely fucking grateful I only have to do that once a decade.

 

[pete]

he told my da that when going through foreign customs he should slap the child

he was a man of great foresight

 

[TenRabbits]

I've made a couple of very stupid passport mistakes jane, so I feel your pain - although mine were ALL my own fault so I can't really blame bureaucracy in all its stifling glory.

The one my friends find the funniest is this: I have dual citizenship (nordie) and when I went for my big long trip I got an Irish passport, as it worked out cheaper in some countries for the visa. Going into turkey I used my brand new Irish passport as it was four quid cheaper or something.

On the way out, I automatically handed the guard my brit passport, which of course has no visa in it - cue the security guy looking perplexed, me realising my mistake, and making it MUCH worse by taking that passport back and giving him the Irish one!

I then spent four hours in a small room, being asked the same 12 -15 questions over and over and over, while I suddenly remembered that Midnight Express was set in Turkey.

After one finger up the bum and a severe warning about fucking around with customs officials, I was off tho, feeling like a death sentence had just been lifted.

 

[It Will Never Last]

Here, fuck sake.

Immigration officials deal with your passport, customs check you for drugs and shit.

 

[TenRabbits]

It was made pretty clear to me that they didn't think I was an illegal immigrant - they thought I was smuggling drugs. Hence me being passed almost immediately to customs.

 

[Bladez]

There is a lot of administration bullshit involved in getting an Irish passport renewed too. I went into the passport office a few months ago with (what I thought) was everything prepared. I had my old passport and my photos.

I was told that my old passport was too battered to be taken as proof of citizenship - no shit, it's 10 years old! I had to go get a birth certificate.

I came back with birth certificate. Then I was told that in my passport photos there wasn't enough contract between my skin and the background. The background's white, I'm white. So I went to get other passport photos from another booth.

Luckily, when you come back, you don't have to queue again. You can go up to a special counter for people who have already been in. There was a guy in front of me at the counter who's proof of ID had been rejected. The guy was really annoyed and was showing the clerk a tatoo of his name on his arm, but she was having none of it.

I finally got my passport.

Also, here you have to get your passport photos signed by a guard. You go into the Garda station and get your photos signed by some guy who has never met you in his life Talk about an antiquated rule!

 

[jane]

Signed by a gard? That's insane. But yeah, my passport was too battered to be considered proof of citizenship, which is why I had to get my friend to come up from work and fill out papers and shit and swear to god and Dubya that she's known me for more than two years and that I'm more than just a conglomeration of molecules.

It was all a bit strange, since there was nothing really stopping me from just asking some random stranger on the street to come in and pretend he or she knew me for a few years (nothing stopping me except that it's not the sort of thing most New Yorkers would be into doing), but hey, it worked. I couldn't be more grateful that the people in the Post Office were incredibly nice. It'd have really fucking sucked if they were dicks about it.

They had to re-take my picture because I had a headband on, and you can't have anything on your head unless it's for religious reasons. But I did finally get the stupid thing, and I am not pleased that in the back of it it says, "This is a replacement for a damaged passport." Because despite the fact that it's a renewal, they don't want me to forget that I fucked up my old one. Grrrr. And I don't think it has as many pages as it's supposed to, but then, my old one had extra pages put into it because I ran out about four years ago, thanks to Irish immigration, who use 1-2 pages of the thing EVERY time I go near the gaff.

 

[Bladez]

Good that you got it in the end! It's amazing how much hassle can come from something so simple.

The sole purpose of your trip to NY wasn't to get your passport renewed? You at least got the chance to do something other than sit around in the Post Office waiting for it to arrive?

 

[jane]

Good that you got it in the end! It's amazing how much hassle can come from something so simple.

The sole purpose of your trip to NY wasn't to get your passport renewed? You at least got the chance to do something other than sit around in the Post Office waiting for it to arrive?

It was indeed the sole purpose of my trip, and I'd left an extra day in case of ineptitude, and now I'm glad I did. I got to do lots of other nice stuff, though, mostly just meeting up with mates, and that was deadly. Plus, I got to go shopping with the lovely Squiggle. But since it was the sole purpose of the trip, it wasn't like all the waiting ruined my fun. I kind of expected that if there was hassle, there was hassle, and I'd just deal with it. Which there was, and I did.

I could have done it through the embassy, but it takes 6-8 weeks and between July and the expiration date (which was the 23rd of December) there wasn't a span of 8 weeks during which I wasn't leaving Ireland for some reason. And anyway, I'd feel really uneasy being stuck here with no passport for that long. It'd be one thing if I was from here, but I'm not. And anyway, I won't be back in the US again for a while, so a quick trip was better than none. Apart from Aer Lingus being cunts and the passport being a bit more hassle than I'd expected, I did indeed have a pretty deadly time. Drank too much and didn't sleep a wink, but that's what coming home is for...

 

[La La]

when i got my irish passport updated a few years ago the dorks at the issuing office printed that my place of birth was in Hong Knog.

haha.
kinda like eggnog. but Hong Knog.

whatever, i thought - it's a typo. no matter.

i travelled with that passport no bother until the time came for me to apply for my J1 to the States a few years ago and the Yanks went mental - thought I was some kind of cant-even-make-a-good-fake-passport-fraudster.

i had to spend an hour being questioned in the american embassy and pay for a new passport to get issued otherwise i wouldnt be allowed entry into the states.

in the end it was fine and off i went and had a jolly old time.

anyways in the future we'll all be implanted with microchips or something and wont have to worry about forgetting passports etc.

 

[Bladez]

It was indeed the sole purpose of my trip, and I'd left an extra day in case of ineptitude, and now I'm glad I did. I got to do lots of other nice stuff, though, mostly just meeting up with mates, and that was deadly. Plus, I got to go shopping with the lovely Squiggle. But since it was the sole purpose of the trip, it wasn't like all the waiting ruined my fun. I kind of expected that if there was hassle, there was hassle, and I'd just deal with it. Which there was, and I did.

I could have done it through the embassy, but it takes 6-8 weeks and between July and the expiration date (which was the 23rd of December) there wasn't a span of 8 weeks during which I wasn't leaving Ireland for some reason. And anyway, I'd feel really uneasy being stuck here with no passport for that long. It'd be one thing if I was from here, but I'm not. And anyway, I won't be back in the US again for a while, so a quick trip was better than none. Apart from Aer Lingus being cunts and the passport being a bit more hassle than I'd expected, I did indeed have a pretty deadly time. Drank too much and didn't sleep a wink, but that's what coming home is for...

OK. I've no sympathy for you anymore! I think if I had to choose any city in the world to kill time in, it'd be NY.

 

[Bladez]

when i got my irish passport updated a few years ago the dorks at the issuing office printed that my place of birth was in Hong Knog.

haha.
kinda like eggnog. but Hong Knog.

Hong Knog! That truly is incompetence That's one of those one's where you have to go out of your way to get it wrong!