Last night, when I got home, I had a minor niggle that I should find my passport. It wasn’t on my desk, where I thought it was, nor was it on/around the piano (the second place I thought it was), wasn’t in the car (third place), nor at work (fourth place, yes I made a special trip to see if it was there). However, eventually, it DID turn up … as a pile of lint in my recently washed pants. I leave Brisbane early tomorrow, and then leave Perth late Tuesday night. Friday and Monday are public holidays. My heart sank like a stone. I wasn’t going to be able to go to Thailand.

I called the passport office, which was closed, and then the consulate, which told me to go to the passport office in Brisbane first thing this morning. It was a night of very little sleep.

This morning, I arrived at the passport office at 8:30am, prepared to wait until it opened at 9am or 9:30am. It opens at 8:30am, in case you were wondering, and I was second in line. The lady told me that the passport was too damaged to even renew, so I would need to apply again for another passport, and hope it was ready before I was due to leave.

Heart still sinking. Took the form to M&D’s to fill out and find my birth certificate, and my birth certificate was missing. Heart sank lower. Bryce found my birth certificate in his file (apparently “his file” should be more accurately named “his and stuff that Dean himself hasn’t yet claimed file”). Filled in the form, went down to Stafford City with Woo to get photos done, and then into work for E to become my guarantor. Paperwork all done, back to the passport office.

By this stage it was 11am. Woo had uni at 12, so we agreed that he’d do slow laps, until 11:40am at the latest and then he’d ditch me and take my car to uni.

I waited, and waited and waited. Tense? Fuhgeddaboudit. Eventually I got served at 11:30-ish, the guy read over my forms, asked about my itinerary and then took a copy of it. He disappeared for 3 very long minutes, before reappearing, and saying “We won’t be able to get your passport to Perth before your flight out.” I almost cried, but then he said, “so we’ll do it today. Come back at 3pm.” The feeling of relief was tangible, my friends, let me tell you.

I had to take another seat and wait for my turn to pay. $210, $62 of which was the standard emergency payment fee, the rest was the regular new passport charge. When I walked out the door at 11:44am, I thought I’d missed Callun. However, he’d decided to do one more block, and saw me, so I got collected after all. My luck seems to be improving.

Hopefully, the passport will be there at 3pm. Wish me luck.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 8th, 2004 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.