There was a bit of a panic a little while back, I couldn't locate The Kid's passport. I finally hauled him up to the post office to get a new one. I'm pretty sure the old one had expired anyway. We got there at 7 am, when the post office opened, and were first in line at the passport desk. A Very Nice Postal Worker took his picture while I filled out the forms.
When you get a passport for a minor you have to have consent of both parents. This way one half of a divorcing couple can't disappear to Venezuela with child in tow. Or at least it makes it harder to do so. When I got to the part of the form about parental consent I told VNPW that my husband was on active military duty in Egypt. "How do we handle this?" She replied that it's not a problem, just write that on the form where it asks why you don't have consent from both parents. So I did. VNPW looked over my form to ensure everything was in order and we sent off the application and paid extra for expedited service. We were cutting it close and my wallet was now $200 lighter.
Yesterday I get a call from the Passport Agency, it went right to my voicemail without so much as a ring, they just said that I needed to call them back and they gave me a reference number. When I called back, I could only leave a message. I tried 4 more times that evening with nothing but answering machines. At 8 pm (!!?) they finally called me to let me know that I can't get The Kid a passport without written consent from Trophy Husband. It' can't be scanned and emailed. They might accept a fax. Seriously? I'm $3700 into this trip and you want me to go ahead and hang my hope on a "might"? And the best part, they suggest that the form be mailed too. Really? It takes 12 days for me to get a package to Egypt. It takes even longer to get one from there to here. If someone had brought this up as I was filling out the application I could have had everything to them, by mail, just in time.
I sent frantic messages to Trophy Husband via Facebook, Skype and three email accounts. He got at least one of them, printed the form and had it notarized (thank God they have a notary on post!) but he can't fax it. He scanned and emailed it to me. I faxed it this morning. I have also called the Passport Agency to see if it was received and, wait for it, had to leave a message. Nice. If I'm lucky I might get The Kid's passport the week we are supposed to leave.
There's that word again, might. If this doesn't work out I might have to go postal.
UPDATE:
Passport Agency just called. "We've looked everywhere, are you sure you faxed it?" Yeah, I'm sure. "Well just try it again" and she gave me a second number to send it to as well. I asked if someone would be able to call me back once it was finally received. "No, you'll just have to call us and leave a message."
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