As fate would have it, my passport expires this year. On one hand, who’s going anywhere right now? On the other hand, who wants to get the fuck out of here right now?
What seems like forever ago, I applied for my passport renewal. Forever in this case is 4 months ago, to the day. That would be February, prior to the world hitting the pause button on life. A month or so into the process, I checked up on the status. It’s actually kind of nice that you can check the status of your passport application online. I doubt that feature was around when I first ordered my passport. As expected, the status was "In progress".
Another nice feature is that you can submit your email to be notified of changes in the status. Again, things you would take for granted with modern businesses seem completely astonishing when applied to government agencies. So I submitted an email and waited. And I kept waiting. I checked up in another month and the status had not changed, which is consistent with me not getting any emails about a status change.
One thing that was different about the status page when I revisited it was that they said they were on limited staff thanks to COVID and there would be a delay of "several months" in processing applications. This is fine and not fine. I’m not going anywhere, but things are getting weird, so what if I did need to go anywhere? It’s never a good feeling to have an answer of "you can’t", even with your most remote imaginations. You grow up surrounded with the promises that "you can do anything", until you have a moment where the answer is "no, you can’t" and that’s made even worse by "you could have, but not right now". Anyway, enough of the dystopia for the moment…
Then about a week ago, I did get an email. Wow! It said my application was "in progress". Oh. In hindsight, this should have been a good sign, meaning my application has been taken off the pile and into someone’s hands, but I didn’t know this at the time. I just thought it was more of the same. I’d been waiting 4 months, what’s another 4?
Today I got another email. My application status was "approved"! Yes, finally! The email stated that when I applied, I chose routine service, so the processing time would be 6-8 weeks. What?! But then it said I would get my book around 6/24/2020. What? This doesn’t make any sense, but whatever. I’m getting my passport soon!
I got another email from USPS, with my soon-to-be-in-my-mailbox notifications. It was already aware of my passport and said it would arrive Monday. I click on the tracking link and no, it’s going to arrive today – exactly 4 months from the day I mailed the application.
The only regret I have while I was waiting for those months is that I didn’t choose to get both the passport card and book. I only chose the book. The reason I want both now is for having a backup. Of course, being involved in computers, I’m always thinking of backups and redundancy. The secure plan would be to take both the book and the card on vacation and only travel outside with the card. Let’s say you’re at a cruise port and you get robbed. Your wallet is taken with the passport card in it. In this case, you wouldn’t be able to pass back through security to get to the ship, but you could send someone to get your passport book from your room and recover.
That small regret aside, I mentioned that things are getting weird around here. It’s actually in the back of my head that depending on how things turn out later this year, my passport might actually be utilized. It’s a remote chance. but I need the reassurance that if that time comes, "I can".
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