Getting a Passport, Part II

Well, I finally found a post office where I could apply for a passport without an appointment. It was forty minutes away, but I'll take what I can get. So yesterday I waited till 11:00 for the ice on the road to melt into lovely slush, then started the run-around. First the drugstore to get passport pictures taken. Where I learned that you are not allowed to smile in them. Well, there goes ANY chance I had of getting a decent-looking picture this time around (last time I looked like a man). So I got those. Then to the bank to get cash, because for some reason, I couldn't pay with my bank card at this particular post office. You'll see why in a minute. Then I drove myself all the way out to this teeny post office in the middle of cow pastures, missed my turn like I always do, turned around, and came back. Then I pulled in the (gravel) parking lot. And discovered that both spaces were full. Yes, there were only two. So I just pulled over to the side and waited for someone to come out, and someone eventually did. I took his parking spot and went inside. This place is about the size of my kitchen. For real. When the guy told me in the morning that they were busy right then, I think he meant they had two people in there, because that's all the space there was! Crazy! So he checks my paperwork and expired passport, copies my birth certificate and all that fun stuff, and then I went to pay him and...turns out cash doesn't cut it either. So it cost me another $1.10 for the money order he had to write up. Greeeeeaaaaaaat. On top of $100 for the passport. Awesome. So then he went behind the one wall in there to do something, and I took this picture, because it was so very Jesse James:


Yes, that is a safe. With the old school, turn-click-turn-click-turn-click lock on it. It was very cool, in an 1857 kind of way.

The adventures in my life never cease.




Leah